The State Department is vociferously defending its decision to send Muslim Public Affairs Council boss Salam al-Marayati to represent the United States at a recent 10-day human rights conference in Poland. He "has been involved in U.S. government initiatives for almost 10 years and has been a valued and highly credible interlocutor on issues affecting Muslim communities," a State Department spokesman told the Washington Free Beacon, adding that al-Marayati was invited to participate in the meeting "as a reflection of the wide diversity of backgrounds of the American people."

If the al-Marayati choice is any indication, that "diversity" apparently extends to anti-Israel ideologues who attack U.S. terrorism prosecutions, whitewash Hamas war crimes, and portray Iran as a victim of U.S. perfidy. And he runs an organization which opposes key elements of American counter-terror policies, including the drone strike which killed American-born al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, the closing of terror-supporting charities and sting operations against would-be homegrown terrorists.

A year ago, al-Marayati even threatened to sever ties with the U.S. government in a strongly-worded Los Angeles Times op-ed column. Expressing anger over the use of "anti-Muslim" training materials by the FBI and a U.S. Attorney's office, al-Marayati wrote: "If this matter is not immediately addressed, it will undermine the relationship between law enforcement and the Muslim American community—another example of the ineptitude and/or apathy undermining bridges built with care over decades."

In spite of MPAC's hostile view of government policies, administration officials routinely turn to MPAC for policy advice, including the training materials al-Marayati ranted about in the Times. In February, MPAC officials met with FBI Director Robert Mueller to discuss training materials about Islam. That same month, MPAC officials met with top Pentagon leaders to receive an apology over a recent incident involving Quran burnings in Afghanistan.

In 2010, the State Department sent al-Marayati to Paris and Geneva to speak to United Nations groups about religious freedom and free speech.

Don't take our word for it when it comes to al-Marayati's extreme views toward Israel, U.S. policy and law enforcement. Watch and listen to the following examples from al-Marayati's mouth:

• In a January 2012 appearance on Russia TV's "Cross Talk," al-Marayati depicted Iran as the victim in the diplomatic crisis over its illicit nuclear program."The problem in the case of Iran is that it is singled out as the threat. We [the U.S.] don't want to deal with North Korea the same way we deal with Iran," he said. "With other countries, we utilize the IAEA, we use multilateral instruments to deal with the nuclear problem. In this case of Iran, there is no dialogue, there is (sic) no negotiations, it is all confrontational policies that is (sic) part of a war-mongering mentality here in the U.S. and they're just waiting for the tripwire and then the machinery of war will begin."Al-Marayati also suggested that Israel is controlling U.S. foreign policy. "The other point here, which is very important historically, the United States has done a lot of dirty work that has served the interests of Israel," he said. "It destroyed Iraq. It supported the destruction and crippling of Egypt. It has crippled the Gulf. And now, it is looking to Iran as the next target for crippling and destroying. I think this is madness. Who is driving our foreign policy - President Obama or Prime Minister Netanyahu?"

• In July 2006 during the Israel-Hizballah war, al-Marayati declared that the Holocaust was no excuse for Israeli "dehumanization" of Arab peoples:

"We're against Holocaust denial, but we're also against people who exploit that as a way of shoving this kind of war propaganda and dehumanization of the Arab peoples and the Muslim peoples as if they have to pay the price for what Nazi Germany did to the Jews back in the 20th century."Al-Marayati has harshly criticized U.S. terrorism prosecutions.

• At a March 12, 2006 fundraising dinner for Sami Al-Arian, he likened the prosecution to the detention of innocent Japanese civilians in the U.S. during World War II. Al-Marayati suggested that "we are being dictated upon, not only on terminology, but dictated upon on who speaks for us, and our organizations, our charities, are shut down one by one. Therefore, brothers and sisters, there is a storm that it is coming. That storm is going to be worse than Japanese internment."

Al-Marayati called Al-Arian "the gentleman who defied the odds in a system that is unfair, and there is no way you can get a fair trial in view of any of these issues today. But regardless, he was able to defy the odds and he was acquitted of all the terrorism charges that were levied against him."

One month later, Al-Arian pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiring to provide services to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a designated terrorist organization, in violation of U.S. law."You laughed when you heard about the bombings" carried out by the PIJ, U.S. District Judge James Moody told Al-Arian in pronouncing sentence, calling him a "master manipulator."

• Speaking to a Dallas audience in 2005, al-Marayati attacked law enforcement's use of informants in terrorism investigations. He blasted the government for using informants in the case against Umer and Hamid Hayat, a father and son living in Lodi, Calif. "The disaster of Lodi is that Muslims were reporting each other to the authorities, saying: 'Oh, this person is an extremist.' ... This is the model not to follow."

This disaster resulted in the convictions of the Hayats on charges of providing material support to al-Qaida and making false statements. Hamid Hayat was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

• After federal authorities in May 2009 disrupted a plot to bomb synagogues and fire missiles at U.S. military aircraft, al-Marayati criticized the prosecution. "These were individuals who were either petty criminals or gullible people who were guilty of stupidity. They were not imminent threats to our country, as the FBI has stated," al-Marayati told Fox News.

The four men convicted in the plot were convicted and sentenced to 25-year prison terms.

At a minimum, Marayati's long record of whitewashing terrorism, trivializing the Holocaust, and denigrating law enforcement's work in protecting Americans from jihadist terror raises serious questions about the State Department's judgment in deciding who should represent the United States abroad. Making taxpayers foot the bill to send the likes of Marayati overseas is the height of folly and legitimizes an official and his organization that often works against the same government that legitimizes it with such significant access.

There are now three separate ad campaigns devoted to opposing my pro-Israel ad in New York subways, and more are coming.

My ad reads: “In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man. Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.” Some Jewish and Christian groups have called this message hateful, and have decided to put up counter-ads that they say are more “loving.”

One of these ads says, “Help stop bigotry against our Muslim neighbors.” Another: “Love your Muslim neighbor.” And a third: “Support peace in word and deed.” Rabbi Jill Jacobs of Rabbis for Human Rights explained: “We, as an organization of rabbis want to make it clear to new york and to the U.S. that neither rabbis nor the mainstream Jewish community support this dehumanization, but in fact we value partnership with our muslim neighbors and muslim organizations.”

These rabbis have good intentions. But is my ad really “bigoted” and “dehumanizing”? Or does it just state unpleasant facts? The jihad against Israel is a jihad against innocent civilians, and the targeting of civilians is indeed savage. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage. The torture of hostage Gilad Shalit was savage. The bloody hacking to death of the Fogel family was savage. The Munich Olympic massacre was savage. The unspeakable torture of Ehud Goldwasser was savage. The tens of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel (into schools, homes, etc.) Are savage. The vicious Jew-hatred behind this genocide is savage. The endless demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage. The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage. The list is endless.

I am all for countering hate. The ad speaks to the defense of freedom and individual rights for all. There’s nothing hateful about it. 9/11 was hate. 3/11 in Madrid was hate. 7/7 in London was hate. The Fort Hood jihadi was hate. The Christmas underwear bomber was hate. The Fort Dix Six was hate. Pushing back against such hate is not hate.

I doubt that the rabbis in rabbis for human rights know anything about the jihad doctrine that relentlessly seeks to violently impose Islamic law and pursues jihad against non-Muslims, or about the Islamic antisemitism that is deeply ingrained in the Qur’an and Sunnah, and that identifies the Jews as the worst enemies of the Muslims (Qur’an 5:82) and under Allah’s curse (Qur’an 9:30). When have they spoken out against that hate, because of which Jews suffer daily? When have they called upon Muslim leaders to reform the Qur’an and expunge its virulently antisemitic texts, which are routinely quoted on Palestinian authority TV as justifying endless warfare against the state of Israel and Jews everywhere? What topsy-turvy moral compass have they employed to come to the conclusion that the “hater” is not the imams who routinely preach violence and antisemitism in mosques and on TV in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but me when i try to call attention to the barbaric cruelty of the jihad against Israel?

And that barbaric cruelty is a constant of Muslim history. Don’t believe me – take it from Rambam, Moses Maimonides, the preeminent medieval Jewish philosopher and one of the greatest Torah scholars and physicians of the Middle Ages. He wrote about the “people of Ishmael,” that is, the Muslims, “whose oppressiveness is firmly upon us and they connive to do us wrong and despicably downgrade us as the Almighty decreed against us (Deuteronomy 32:31, ‘Your enemies shall judge you’)… There never came against Israel a more antagonistic nation. They oppress us with the most oppressive measures to lessen our number, reduce us, and make us as despicable as they themselves are.”

Will these rabbis condemn Maimonides as a “bigot”? Or will they recognize that he was speaking out of the reality of his experience, and that Muslim behavior toward the Jews in Israel shows that many Muslims still believe the same way as did the Muslims whom Maimonides encountered?

Leading Jewish voices like Caroline Glick, Martin Sherman, Paul Schnee, Steve Goldberg and Lori Lowenthal-Marcus support my ad. So this shows the diversity of opinion within Judaism, which is a notable contrast to the Muslim community – where are the moderate Muslims speaking out in support of my ad?

It is also important to remember that these “faith groups” that are opposing my ad say nothing in the face of the mass slaughter and ethnic cleansing of their own people at the hands of savage Muslim jihadis. When have these interfaith groups spoken out against the virulent antisemitic and genocidal rhetoric coming from Iran and jihad groups arrayed against Israel? When have they spoken out against the persecution of Christians in Pakistan, Indonesia, Egypt, Iraq and elsewhere? When have they spoken up for Hindus in Bangladesh, Bahais in Iran, and other persecuted religious minorities?

Their moral myopia is immense. They are confusing resistance to hatred with actual hatred.

Wake up. I am not the problem. You want to fight against “hate,” fight against the barbaric jihadis who glory in the torture and murder of children, not against me.

___________________________________________________________________

Pamela Geller is the publisher of atlasshrugs.com and the author of the wnd books title Stop The Islamization Of America: A Practical Guide To The Resistance.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

"Bangladeshi man arrested after allegedly trying to blow up Fed building in NYC," from Fox News, October 17:

DEVELOPING: Federal authorities arrested a Bangladeshi national Wednesday morning for allegedly plotting to blow up a Federal Reserve building in New York City's lower Manhattan, mere blocks away from the site of the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.The 21-year-old suspect, Quazi Mohammad Rezwanul Ahsan Nafis, attempted to detonate what he thought was a 1,000-pound bomb in front of the Fed building on Liberty Street, but the device was a fake supplied to him by undercover FBI agents who had been tracking his activity, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force said Wednesday afternoon.

The supposed explosives posed no threat to the public, the FBI said.

A criminal complaint accuses Nafis of having overseas connections to Al Qaeda and travelling to the U.S. in January to recruit individuals to form a terrorist cell and conduct an attack on American soil. But one of Nafis' potential recruits was an FBI source, who alerted authorities, the FBI said.

A federal law enforcement official told Fox News that there was no evidence Nafis was directed by Al Qaeda to carry out this attack, though he appears to have thought he was working for the terrorist group.

At one point, according to criminal complaint, Nafis told undercover agents: "I don't want something that's like, small. I just want something big. Something very big ... that will shake the whole country, that will make America, not one step ahead, change of policy, and make one step ahead, for the Muslims ... that will make us one step closer to run the whole world."

A U.S. official told Fox News that President Obama was Nafis' first target, but the criminal complaint only refers to "a high-ranking official." The complaint also mentions the New York Stock Exchange as a proposed target....

NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly noted that there have been 15 terrorist plots targeting the city since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"Al Qaeda operatives and those they have inspired have tried time and again to make New York City their killing field," Kelly said. "After 11 years without a successful attack, it's understandable if the public becomes complacent. But that's a luxury law enforcement can't afford."

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Lt.Col. Matthew DooleyLieutenant Colonel Matthew Dooley’s career has been effectively destroyed by General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, various complicit members of the Pentagon and the military and, most of all, political correctness on the part of the U.S. government.

Col. Dooley, who was awarded the Bronze Star, the fourth-highest combat decoration, is a West Point graduate and highly rated armor officer who served in Iraq, Germany, Bosnia and Kuwait. He was, until recently, the instructor of a course to fellow officers on the dangers of radical Islam at the Joint Forces Staff College (part of the National Defense University).

His downfall came at the hands of 57 Islamic groups who began complaining a year ago that the U.S. military and intelligence counter-terrorism training instructors and materials were anti-Islam.

Included the group of complainers was both CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) and ISNA (Islamic Society of North America). Both CAIR and ISNA were named as unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Terror Funding Trial, largest ever terror-funding trial in U.S. history. Both are listed by the Muslim Brotherhood -- whose publicized doctrine is to destroy American from within -- as two of it “working organizations.”

As a direct result of the complaints by the Islamic groups, the U.S. government instituted broad, sweeping reviews and eventual purges of its counter-terrorism training materials. Islamic groups were allowed into the FBI and other institutions to approved or disapprove the materials. The Pentagon complied with the review, as did all of the branches of U.S. armed forces.

At that time, the Pentagon found no fault in any of its courses or instructors. Col. Dooley’s course, which he began teaching in 2010, had been taught the same way since 2004. All the material for the course was approved by the university. In his evaluations from last year, Col. Dooley was referred to as a superb officer.

Yet changes were being made. RepresentativesDooley in combat from the government, including John Brennon, the chief counter terrorism advisor, instituted new terminology in the "War on Terror." No longer were Al Qaeda fighters called "Islamic extremists;" they became simply “extremists.” Gone was any mention of the ideology driving their "extremism."

The Islamic groups also demanded that employees who promoted (in their opinion) "biased" training about these "extremists" be "effectively disciplined."

However, Col. Dooley’s course was not singled out until close to six months later when one of his students lodged a complaint to Defense Secretary Leon Panetta. It was then that Col. Dooley’s course was suspended. Ironically, the complaint was not even about Col. Dooley, but about a guest lecturer he had brought in.

The guest lecturer had been talking about "what if" scenarios, a common way the military strategizes: Envision a potential scenario and figure out how to deal with it.

In this case, the guest lecturer asked what would happen if Islamic extremists gained control of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and began destroying U.S. cities. How should the U.S. respond?

The faculty handbook at the university where Col. Dooley was teaching his course says that students and faculty are to express opinions "free of limitations, restraints or coercion by the university or external environment." Further, it states that "no subject or issue is considered taboo."

In a particularly telling passage, the handbook says that the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (i.e., Gen. Demsey) directs the university to "establish a Gen. Martin Dempseyclimate of academic freedom within the university to foster thorough and lively academic debate, and to examine national security issues. To continue to craft the best possible national security policy for the United States and offer the best possible advice to U.S. leaders and students, the faculty of the university must be free to examine policy from all viewpoints."

Still, a new review of the government’s counter-terrorism training materials and instructors was ordered by Gen. Dempsey on April 24, 2012. At a press conference the next day, a spokesman singled out Col. Dooley and told reporters that his course was "inflammatory."

In May, an internet site called Wired "broke" the story about the government’s focus on Islamic terrorists in their counter-terrorism training materials. They had obtained some of Col. Dooley’s course materials and accused him of advocating a "total war" against Islam. In the article, Marine Lt. General George Flynn, Gen. Dempsy’s deputy for joint force training, told Wired that Dooley’s course was teaching that "Islam had already declared war on the West. It was inflammatory."

The site published a briefing by Col. Dooley in which he said, "Political Correctness is killing us: How can we properly identify the enemy, analyze his weaknesses, and defeat him, if we are never permitted to examine him from the most basic doctrinal level?"

The same day the Wired story broke, Gen. Dempsey excoriated Col. Dooley at a press conference, referring to him as "the individual."

At the press conference, Gen. Dempsey said, "It was just totally objectionable, against our values, and it wasn’t academically sound … academically irresponsible."

One month later, a general on Demspey’s staff at the Penatgon ordered Dooley to be removed as an instructor "for cause." The university was ordered to produce a negative officer evaluation report on Dooley.

In the military, this is known as a "career ender."

Dooley hired Richard Thompson, president of the non-profit Thomas More Law Center, to represent him in an appeal against the negative report.

In an interview with the Washinton Times, Thompson said the Pentagon is trying to appease the Muslim Brotherhood.

"What happened here was this whole idea of political correctness deterred the ability of our military to speak frankly about the identity of the enemy. Once you allow political correctness to overwhelm our military, then we are really going to have an impact on our national security," Thompson is quoted as saying.

The Times reports that the negative officer evaluation report, issued on August 29, prompted two Republicans on the House Armed Services Committee to send a letter to Gen. Dempsey last week asking why such harsh action was taken.

The newspaper obtained a copy of the letter which read, "Since [the Depart. Of Defense] had already directed [National Defense University] to cancel the [course], and LTC Dooley was then relieved as its instructor, we would like to know why the [Defense Dept.] was compelled to further discipline LTC Dooley by jeopardizing his reputation and his future in the service. It is our understanding that LTC Dooley did not violate any established University practices, policies or [Defense Dept.] regulations to merit a negative [officer evaluation report]."

The letter was signed by Reps. Thomas J. Rooney (R-Fla) and Duncan Hunter (R-Ca).

Further, Thompson told the Times that Dooley had made it clear that the presentations were not official U.S. policy. Thompson also said that he is considering filing a civil suit in the U.S. District Court against Gen. Dempsey.

Meira Svirsky is the content coordinator of RadicalIslam.org, the former managing editor of The Daily Texan and the former editor of UTmost magazine.

A year-long investigation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) has found that scores of known radical Islamists made hundreds of visits to the Obama White House, meeting with top administration officials. Court documents and other records have identified many of these visitors as belonging to groups serving as fronts for the Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas and other Islamic militant organizations. The IPT made the discovery combing through millions of White House visitor log entries. IPT compared the visitors' names with lists of known radical Islamists. Among the visitors were officials representing groups which have:

• Been designated by the Department of Justice as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorist trials; Extolled Islamic terrorist groups including Hamas and Hizballah;• Obstructed terrorist investigations by instructing their followers not to cooperate with law enforcement;• Promoted the incendiary conspiratorial allegation that the United States is engaged in a "war against Islam"— a leading tool in recruiting Muslims to carry out acts of terror;• Repeatedly claimed that many of the Islamic terrorists convicted since 9-11 were framed by the U.S government as part of an anti-Muslim profiling campaign.Individuals from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) visited the White House at least 20 times starting in 2009. In 2008, CAIR was listed as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorist money laundering case in U.S. history – the trial of the Holy Land Foundation in which five HLF officials were convicted of funneling money to Hamas.

U.S. District Court Judge Jorge Solis later ruled that, "The Government has produced ample evidence to establish the association" of CAIR to Hamas, upholding their designations as unindicted co-conspirators. In 2008, the FBI formally ended all contact with CAIR because of its ties to Hamas.

In January 2004, Hussam Ayloush, executive director of CAIR's Los Angeles office, publicly defended Palestinian terror attacks in comments before Muslim students at the University of California – Los Angeles, saying that terrorists were exercising their "legitimate right" to defend themselves against Israeli occupation.

Ayloush, who was a delegate to the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., casts the United States as controlled by Israeli interests. At a 2008 CAIR banquet in San Diego, he imagined "an America that respects and humanizes religion. It's an America that is free to act on its values and not on the interests of any foreign lobby." In 2004, he said that the war on terror had become a "war on Muslims." Ayloush attended at least two White House meetings.

The logs show Ayloush met with Paul Monteiro, associate director of the White House Office of Public Engagement on July 8, 2011 and Amanda Brown, assistant to the White House director of political affairs Patrick Gaspard, on June 6, 2009.

According to reliable sources, Monteiro was White House liaison for secret contacts with CAIR, especially with Ayloush. IPT has learned that the White House logs curiously have omitted Ayloush's three meetings with two other senior White House officials.

Louay Safi, formerly executive director of the Islamic Society of North America, visited the White House twice – meeting in intimate settings with Paul Monteiro on June 29, 2011 and July 8, 2011.

Law enforcement first noticed Safi in 1995 when his voice was captured in an FBI wiretap of now-convicted Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian. At the time of his conversation with Al-Arian, Safi served as executive director of the International Institute of Islamic Thought, an organization listed in law-enforcement and in internal Muslim Brotherhood documents as one of the movement's top front groups in North America.

Safi also wrote for the Middle East Affairs Journal, produced by the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR). That group was established by Hamas deputy political leader Mousa Abu Marzook and part of the Hamas-support network called the "Palestine Committee."

Safi has repeatedly expressed understanding for the underlying causes that provoke terrorism: "Terrorism cannot be fought by…ignoring its root causes. The first step…is to examine the conditions that give rise to the anger, frustration, and desperation that fuel all terrorist acts." He also called Palestinian terrorists "freedom" fighters.Esam Omeish, former head of the Muslim Brotherhood-created Muslim American Society, visited the White House three times.

In 2000, Omeish personally hired the late terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki to be the imam of Falls Church, VA, Dar al-Hijrah mosque. According to IPT analysis, more terrorists have been linked to Dar al-Hijrah since 9/11 than to any other mosque in America.

Click to hear audioAccording to video captured by IPT, Omeish went a step further at the December 22, 2000, Jerusalem Day rally in Washington's Lafayette Park, praising Palestinian terror groups, saying they had learned "the jihad way" to "liberate" Palestine.

In a sermon at Dar al-Hijrah in 2009, Omeish called for "an American Islamic movement that transforms our status, that impacts our society, and that brings forth the change that we want to see."

Click to hear audioLast month, Omeish attended a reception for Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi during Morsi's United Nations visit. Morsi is a longtime Egyptian Brotherhood leader. Omeish posted a picture of the event on his Facebook page and noted: "His Excellency provided great insights and we share important perspectives."

This is just one of many reminders that Romney is FAR from the ideal candidate - as most forum members will acknowledge. We have to deal with this reality. As Mark Levin has repeatedly said: "Our fight will be only beginning - as we struggle to constantly hold Romney's feet to the fire. He is not a true conservative."

Mitt Romney's embrace of Kenny Gamble, an operator of Philadelphia charter schools who doubles as a prominent suit-and-tie Islamist calling himself Luqman Abdul Haqq, raises questions about a potential Romney administration's readiness to identify and steer clear of smooth-talking radicals. The Republican candidate should treat this blunder as a learning opportunity. The lesson: never make the mistake of promoting a Muslim leader without properly vetting him first.

The story begins on May 24, when Romney's desire to push his education policies and reach out to urban voters prompted a visit to West Philadelphia's Universal Bluford Charter School, one of several managed by Gamble's conglomerate, Universal Companies. According to an ABC News report, Romney "had heard about Universal … and asked for an invitation." Gamble claimed as much in a radio interview.Seated beside Gamble, Romney joined other local figures for a roundtable (video here) in which he discussed ideas for attracting good teachers, involving parents, and boosting achievement. Romney generously praised Gamble, at one point turning to him and saying, "I'd like to get your experience from the front lines and first salute you for the investment you've made, financial and personal, in establishing a pathway for hundreds, thousands of young people to have changed lives." Gamble led Romney on a tour of the facilities as well.

No less disconcerting, the Romney campaign appears not to have done any serious follow-up on Gamble despite drawing criticism from bloggers for the trip to an "Islamist-owned charter school." Thus, Romney compounded the previous error by eagerly dropping Gamble's name multiple times during NBC's Education Nation summit in New York on September 25.

"I saw a school in the inner city of Philadelphia," Romney explained. "And I understand that the school was closed down, that 90 percent of the kids in that school were not reading at grade level. … A guy named Kenny Gamble … put in place a charter school." After recounting his surprise at the art, music, and computer instructors there, Romney touted how Gamble runs it "like a business." He continued: "As I recall, almost 90 percent of the students there now are reading at grade level. And it's the same students." (Note, however, that Universal's education record is very much a mixed bag.)

Wherever Romney originally heard about Gamble and Universal, it probably was not from the websites of Middle East expert Daniel Pipes, Islamist Watch, or Militant Islam Monitor, which for years have documented Gamble's troubling agenda — a history that should make him toxic to any politician knowledgeable about stealth jihad.

An African-American music and real estate mogul, Gamble has long been listed — under his alternate name, Luqman Abdul Haqq — as part of the governing council of the Muslim Alliance in North America (MANA), which is among the most radical U.S. Muslim groups. Its formation was inspired by Jamil al-Amin, a convicted cop killer and Islamic separatist who dreams of a Shari'a-run state; he enjoys MANA's support to this day and even has phoned into MANA meetings from prison. Gamble's other MANA colleagues have included Luqman Ameen Abdullah, who preached jihad against the U.S. and was shot to death after initiating a gunfight with federal agents in 2009, and Siraj Wahhaj, one of the "unindicted persons who may be alleged as co-conspirators" in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing.Just as several MANA leaders have championed the building of closed Islamic communities, Gamble outlined his own "model" for them during an interview on Saudi television. Worse, he is suspected of actually using his enormous South Philadelphia real estate holdings to assemble what has been dubbed a "black Muslim enclave." Confronted in 2007, Gamble responded with a rant portraying segregation as natural. "It's like cats," he insisted. "They're all cats. But you don't see the lion with the tiger. You don't see the tiger with the panther." Equally alarming are Gamble's intimate ties to the Jawala Scouts (photos here), aptly described as an "Islamic paramilitary boys group" featuring "hand-to-hand combat, firearms training, and survival tactics."

Additional background is available in an Islamist Watch article from 2008, published after Gamble left his fingerprints on that year's election by hosting an Obama office. Alternatively, a simple online search yields plentiful data.

What makes the Romney-Gamble flirtation so unsettling is the apparent lack of due diligence in determining who does and does not get endorsed by the man who could be the next leader of the free world. Ten minutes on Google should suffice to raise red flags, but did anyone from the campaign bother to look? More disturbing is the possibility that uncomfortable facts turned up but were dismissed as tangential to Gamble's work in education.

"Saluting" somebody like Gamble for one facet of his life while ignoring the rest imparts an aura of respectability to the individual as a whole, easing the path for his less savory projects. This seems to be understood for every group except Muslims. Imagine, for example, a senior figure in a radical Christian organization whose luminaries have been linked to violence and terrorism, a man who has shrugged off charges of constructing a "white Christian enclave" and been involved with a youth movement whose participants march in fatigues and brandish weapons. Regardless of his other accomplishments, would this person be asked to share camera time with a presidential hopeful? The question answers itself.

The role of the media is significant here. Though they would hammer any candidate who bolstered the analogous Christian radical, mainstream news sources that covered Romney's Bluford visit made no mention of the skeletons in Gamble's closet, illustrating that their see-no-evil mentality vis-à-vis Islamism trumps even their instinct to shame Republicans. Indeed, the obvious hypersensitivity and double standards protecting Islamists can foster complacency among politicians of both parties, who assume that they will not be held accountable for palling around with them.

This certainly has been the case in Philadelphia, where Mayor Michael Nutter has suffered no ill effects from having Gamble on his inaugural committee, personally presenting the sign to rename a block in Gamble's honor, and headlining the dedication ceremony for a taxpayer-supported mural that lauds him. Such legitimization has paved the way for Gamble to build his Islamist-tinged empire through massive government assistance, including dirt-cheap property from the city, sweetheart deals with the School Reform Commission when it was chaired by a onetime Universal board member, and regular feedings at public troughs that span the municipal, state, and federal levels.

Rather than provide a "they do it too" excuse for politicians caught befriending Islamists, the Philadelphia establishment's cozy relations with Gamble only underscore the importance of a critical eye and the will to act on it — in other words, real leadership. As radical Muslims aggressively seek similar openings to win undeserved respect and influence governments both nationally and internationally, a president capable of recognizing and shunning them is more vital than ever. Washington's colossal and bipartisan failures in Muslim outreach — most recently seen in the mind-boggling selection of an Islamist to represent the U.S. at a conference on human rights — have done enough damage already.

Islamists have grown adept at hiding in plain sight, so great care must be taken when choosing which Muslims to engage and extol. With luck, airing the embarrassing facts behind his unfortunate promotion of Kenny Gamble / Luqman Abdul Haqq will be the wake-up call that Mitt Romney needs to learn this lesson now and, should he prevail on November 6, be in a better position to succeed where past presidents have faltered.

David J. Rusin is a research fellow at Islamist Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

The charter school movement associated with Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen is under federal investigation

If one believes that the battle for the nation’s soul is occurring, not just in Washington, D.C., but in schools across the nation, the steady advance of Turkish-Gulen Charter Schools may be cause for alarm. Fethullah Gulen is a Turkish Islamic cleric who fled his native country in 1998, after being charged with seeking to overthrow the secular Turkish government. He currently lives in exile at a 28-acre mountain complex in the Pocono Mountains, with more than $25 billion of assets at his command. The 135 charter schools associated with the Gulen Movement (GM) enroll more than 45,000 students and comprise the largest charter school network in the United States — all of which are fully funded by American taxpayers. Fethullah Gulen has been under investigation by the government since 2011.

That investigation, carried out by FBI and the Departments of Labor and Education, is centered around charter school employees who are allegedly engaged in kicking back part of their salaries to the Muslim movement also known as Hizmet (service to others), founded by Gulen. Gulen initiated his movement in Izmir, a city on Turkey’s Aegean coast, more than 40 years ago, preaching impassioned sermons to his followers, who may now number as many as six million. In Turkey, the Gulen Movement has been accused of pushing for a hardline Islamic state. Despite this reality, government officials investigating the kickback scheme are apparently satisfied that there is no religious agenda being disseminated in America. Their investigation is centered around the hundreds of Turkish teachers, administrators, and other staffers employed under the H1B visa program, who may or may not be misusing taxpayer money.

This would appear to be a stunningly naive approach to the issue. H1B visas allow US employers to hire foreign workers in specialty occupations on a temporary basis. “Specialty occupations” are defined as “requiring theoretical and practical application of a body of highly specialized knowledge in a field of human endeavor.” Gulen schools are among the nation’s largest users of the H1B visas. In 2009, they received government approvals for 684 visas. The Harmony School, a Gulen-related institution, has applied for more H1B visas than any educational institution in the country.

GM officials at some of the charter schools that ostensibly specialize in math and science, claim they need to fill teaching spots with Turkish teachers. At the Young Scholars of Central Pennsylvania Charter School in State College, Ruth Hocker, former president of the parents’ group, grew suspicious when certified American teachers began to be replaced by uncertified Turks with limited English-speaking skills who, despite that limitation, commanded higher salaries. Parents pointed out that these uncertified teachers were moved from one charter to another when their “emergency” credentials expired. They also spoke about a pattern of sudden turnovers of Turkish business managers, administrators, and board members.

Similar complaints arose in Texas, where it was revealed that hundreds of Turkish teachers and administrators were also working with H1B visas. In addition, the Harmony School group was using taxpayer money to fund Gulen’s movement via school construction and renovation projects. Despite assertions that the bidding process on those projects was fair, records showed that virtually all of the work has been done by Turkish-owned contractors, according to the New York Times.

A former teacher from Turkey revealed an ominous development, reportedly telling the FBI that the Gulen Movement had divided the United States into five regions, with a general manager in each who coordinates the activities of the schools, and related foundations and cultural centers.

All of the above raises the obvious question: if these schools are traditional American charter schools that do nothing more than “follow the state curriculum,” as Tansu Cidav, the acting CEO of the Truebright Science Academy in North Philadelphia contends, why is it necessary to hire foreign teachers and coordinate activities nationwide?

A federal document released in 2011 may provide the answer. It posits that Gulen’s charter schools may in fact be madrassahs, where students are “brain-washed” to serve as proponents of the New Islamic World Order Gulen purportedly seeks to create.

Former Muslim Brotherhood member Walid Shoebat illuminates the bigger picture. Shoebat, who was highly critical of a CBS “60 Minutes” report on Gulen (who refused to be interviewed for the piece), likens the cleric’s movement to the leftist Center for American Progress (CAP) And radical billionaire George Soros. “Both men are extremely wealthy, use that money to surreptitiously spread their ideologies, and like to operate behind the scenes as much as possible,” writes Shoebat.

The American Thinker’s Janet Levy takes it one step further. After noting that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan belongs to the AKP political party founded by Gulen upon his arrival in Pennsylvania, she points out that “Turkey is reverting to its historical Ottoman Empire-inspired Islamic fundamentalism,” even as “it is pursuing a stealth or cultural jihad against the West, in large part through the efforts of Fethullah Gülen, a Turkish Islamic theologian.” In a 1999 video, Gulen himself spoke of a surreptitious plan for taking over the Turkish government: ”You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers … until the conditions are ripe … The time is not yet right. You must wait for the time when you are complete and conditions are ripe, until we can shoulder the entire world and carry it[.]”

The movement is well on its way towards achieving that aim. GM is now active in 140 countries. Aside from its charter school empire, other interests including boarding schools, universities, banks, media companies, newspapers, charities, and think tanks.

60 Minutes reporter Leslie Stahl took the typically leftist, see-no-Islamist-evil approach towards complaints about the Gulen schools advancing an Islamic agenda in America, assuring viewers that he promotes “tolerance, inter-faith dialogue and, above all, he promotes education.” Yet even Stahl was forced to acknowledge that while Gulen “invites conspiracy theories that he’s running Turkey from the Poconos and is bent on global Muslim domination,” his movement “does lack transparency: its funding, hierarchy, and ambitions remain hidden–leading our State Department to wonder in cables between Ankara and Washington if Gulen has an ‘insidious political agenda.’”

This is not the first investigation conducted of Gulen’s empire. In 2008, members of the Netherlands’ Christian Democrat, Labor, and Conservative parties agreed to cut several million euros in government funding for organizations affiliated with Gulen. An investigation ensued when Erik Jan Zürcher, director of the Amsterdam-based International Institute for Social History, along with five former followers who had worked for Gulen, told Dutch television that the Gulen community was moving step-by-step to topple the secular order.

In Pennsylvania, neighbors of Gulen’s fortress retreat complain of hearing automatic gunfire and the drone of a surveillance helicopter that constantly searches for intruders. 100 Turkish guards stand watch over the property as well. If this man and his movement–which continues to expand–have nothing to hide, they have a remarkable way of showing it.

As a Turkish observer speaking to the New Republic noted, “No society would tolerate this big of an organization being this untransparent.” The FBI’s new investigation against Gulen’s organization brings us one step closer to exposing what goes on behind the closed doors of Gulen’s empire.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

The Investigative Project on Terrorism has learned that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi headlined a Democratic Party fundraiser with leaders of Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood front groups in May of this year.

The invitation-only fundraiser was sponsored by Reps. Keith Ellison, D-Minn.; Andre Carson, D-Ind.; and Steve Israel, D-N.Y., chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and took place on the evening of May 16, 2012, at the W Hotel in Washington D.C.

In attendance were about 20 members of a Syrian dissident group and 10 officials representing Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas front groups. Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) Executive Director Nihad Awad was perhaps the most prominent attendee and played a key role in organizing the event.

CAIR, an unindicted co-conspirator in the 2007-2008 Holy Land Foundation Hamas money-laundering trials, was described in FBI testimony as having been created by Hamas. In a 2007 federal court filing, prosecutors described CAIR as conspiring with other branches of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists.

The FBI officially severed relations with CAIR in 2008 because of its ties to Hamas.

Also in attendance was Jamal Barzinji, a founding father of the Muslim Brotherhood in America and co-founder of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), an incubator for Islamic radicalism in North America. MSA was the forerunner of Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT).

Barzinji was named in a federal affidavit as being closely associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas. His name appears in a global phone book of Muslim Brotherhood members recovered by Italian and Swiss authorities in Nov. 2001 from the home of Al-Taqwa Bank of Lugano founder Youssef Nada, one of the leaders of the international Muslim Brotherhood.

During the fundraiser, Pelosi sat at the same table with Awad and Barzinji.

Speaking to the attendees in her 10-minute address, she said the Democratic Party should become the natural home of Muslim-Americans, because Republicans fan the flames of "Islamophobia." She focused exclusively on Islamophobia, a term devised by radical Islamists and their apologists to silence critics, while avoiding any mention of terrorism carried out by Islamists in the United States.

Also speaking were Israel, Ellison, Carson, and Reps Alyson Schwartz, D-Pa., and Chris Murphy, D-Conn. Israel and Murphy were said to have been the most vehement among the members of Congress in attendance in terms of their incendiary accusations of Republican-incited Islamophobia. One observer said that it was striking that "there was not a scintilla of comments in defense of U.S. national security." However, they welcomed each of the Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood front groups represented at the event into the "Democratic community" without any mention of their well-documented terror links.

Following the speeches, a prominent attorney, Mazen Asbahi publicly rose to announce the creation of a new organization called the National Muslim Democratic Council (NMDC). Asbahi was Obama's 2008 Muslim outreach director but was forced to step down when his prior association with a radical Muslim cleric, Jamal Said, became public. Said was an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism financing trial.

The NMDC seeks to "maximize American Muslim support for Democratic candidates and policies."

The IPT has obtained a memo detailing the creation and agenda of the National Muslim Democratic Council that is marked "CONFIDENTIAL; NOT FOR PUBLIC DISTRIBUTION" In the section marked "2012 election strategy" the group specifically spelled out detailed plans to support the Democrats and target Republicans in "key races where American Muslims can make a difference."

According to the document, these races included:

• Defeating Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., in his race against Patrick Murphy, D-Fla.;• Supporting former Gov. Tim Kaine, D-Va., in his race against former Sen. George Allen, R-Va., in the race for Virginia's vacant Senate seat;• Supporting Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., in her bid for re-election against former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Pete Hoekstra, R-Mich.;• And, supporting Joyce Beatty, D-Ohio, in her bid to capture the state's 3rd congressional district.

The confidential NMDC document was signed by several known radical Islamists such as Asbahi, CAIR's Basim Elkarra; Jihad Saleh Williams of Islamic Relief USA; and Linda Sarsour of the Arab American Association of New York.

These individuals have a documented history of radical statements and associations. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., went so far as to strip Elkarra of an award after she became aware of his affiliation with CAIR and its documented extremism. Saleh Williams' organization Islamic Relief USA, Is an offshoot of Islamic Relief Worldwide (IRW), found to be providing financial and other assistance to the terrorist group Hamas. Sarsour is an outspoken radical who has called for a "one state solution" in Palestine, believes that the underwear bomber was a CIA plant, and believes that NYPD informants "actually manufacture" cases against Muslims. "Stand up and say no. Stop spying and harassing and intimidating the Muslim community" she demands of the NYPD.

The DCCC fundraiser exemplifies the deep inroads that Islamist radicals, like those mentioned above, have made in the Democratic Party over the past few years to the exclusion of more moderate elements in the American Muslim community.

These inroads may already be creating internal tension within the Democratic Party. This was on full display during the 2012 Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C., after pro-Israel language from the party platform was omitted, including expressions of support for recognition of Jerusalem as the nation's undivided capital.Awad told Al-Jazeera the change marked a new course for the Democratic Party and that it would likely not be the last dust-up on such issues.

"This is an indication that the Democratic Party's political platform with regard to the Middle East is developing," Awad said.

Senior Democratic Party establishment figures seem intent on engaging and accommodating these new and sometimes radical elements in their party as an up-and-coming new constituency and money source. Most mainstream Democrats, have yet to grasp the full extent of their party's infiltration.

A RadicalIslam.org investigation has discovered that at least four Islamists sit on New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s Muslim outreach committee, which was formed after Attorney General Jeffrey Chiesa concluded in May that NYPD intelligence-gathering operations in New Jersey did not break any laws.

All of the information about the Islamist backgrounds of these four committee members is publicly available, yet the Christie Administration picked them to serve as liaisons to the Muslim community of the state. As a result, they are having private meetings with N.J.’s top security officials. This is just the latest example of Christie’s embrace of Islamists that should be shunned, not exalted.

The discovery that the Islamists were on the committee was made when RadicalIslam.org obtained a previously unreleased list of committee members present at a September 5, 2012 meeting at the Leroy Smith Building in Newark.

The four committee members of concern are:

Imam Mohammad Qatanani, whose deportation is sought by the Department of Homeland Security for not disclosing on his green card application that he was arrested and convicted by Israel in 1993 for his involvement with Hamas;Ahmed Shedeed, a fervent supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and President of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, a mosque with a history of Islamist leadership. Its website currently contains disturbing statements about jihad, the West, wife beating and polygamy;Mohammed Younes, the President of the American Muslim Union, a group with Islamist leadership and close ties to Qatanani’s mosque, which was founded by a Hamas fundraiser; andImam Abdul Basit of the New Brunswick Islamic Center, a mosque founded by a radical cleric. In July, it held a Brotherhood-linked seminar featuring multiple extremist speakers.Addressing the committee were: Attorney General Chiesa, NJ State Police Superintendent Colonel Rick Fuentes and the Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Director Edward Dickson. These addresses were followed by dialogue with committee members.

Other NJ officials that were present at the meeting were: First Assistant Attorney General Calcagni, Special Assistant Christopher Iu, Special Assistant Paul Salvatoriello, State Police Major Gerald Lewis and Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness Community Affairs Chief John Paige.

Profiles of the Four Islamist Committee Members

Imam Mohammad Qatanani

The most notorious of the committee members is Mohammad Qatanani. He was arrested in Israel in 1993 because of his links to Hamas, including the fact that his brother-in-law was a Hamas official in the West Bank. Qatanani told the Israelis that he had been a member of the Jordanian Muslim Brotherhood but left in 1991 because he had limited time for this project. The Israeli government says he admitted to being a Hamas member and was convicted, but he was released as part of a plea bargain. The Department of Homeland Security is seeking his deportation for failing to disclose this on his green card application.

In 1994, Qatanani moved to NJ to lead the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, a mosque founded in 1989 by Hamas fundraiser Mohammed El-Mezain. In November 1994, El-Mezain stated that ICPC was collecting money for Hamas, according to an FBI report. The two men jointly led the ICPC and lived together as El-Mezain raised money for terrorism until he stepped down in 1999. In July 2006, the Department of Homeland Security began deportation proceedings against Qatanani.

The DHS says Qatanani “engaged in terrorist activity” and is guilty of “material misrepresentation” and “engaging in unauthorized employment … by allowing an out-of-status alien to reside with him.” It also describes a “highly dubious” transfer of thousands of dollars to the West Bank.

“It is certainly suspicious when a person who has been convicted of being a member of, and providing services, to Hamas, who has personal ties to a Hamas militant leader, and a Hamas fundraiser also sends undisclosed cash to the West Bank,” the 2008 DHS court filing states.

Qatanani is the only Hamas supporter identified by name in a July 2008 NJ Office of Homeland Security and Preparedness intelligence report about the Hamas network in the state. His preaching between 2007 and 2009 reflected his radical views, as shown in translations made by the Investigative Project on Terrorism. For example, he prayed for the defeat of “occupation and oppression” in Iraq, Palestine and Chechnya in 2007. The enemies of Islam are the U.S., Israel and Russia in this context.

He also preached that Jews and Christians “will be swiftly punished by Allah” and that Muslims should not speak poorly of Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi, a top Muslim Brotherhood cleric that endorses suicide bombings and Hamas. He also defended donations to the families of suicide bombers. Just this September, Qatanani said the U.S. should outlaw criticism of Islam.

Under Qatanani’s leadership, the ICPC has held various Islamist speakers, such as Hamas-supporter Imam Reda Shata, Hamas-linked activist Abdelhaleem Ashqar (who is now in prison for refusing to testify about the Hamas network in the U.S.) and Wagdy Ghoneim, who was voluntarily deported from the country in 2005 for his terror ties and now preaches extremism in Egypt.

In April 2004, a former chairman of the ICPC’s board, Esam Omeish, praised Palestinians who “[understand] that the jihad way is the way to liberate your land,” pointing out the “beloved” founder of Hamas as an example to follow. He also supports the Muslim Brotherhood as a “moderate” force and once was the president of the Muslim American Society, a Brotherhood front. He also “likes” Sheikh Yousef al-Qaradawi on Facebook.

Despite this record, Christie defended Qatanani against the DHS in 2008, calling him a “man of great goodwill.” His Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles McKenna was as a character witness for him during the trial. The immigration judge granted Qatanani permanent residency, but the Board of Immigration Appeals overturned the ruling. The next deportation hearing is scheduled for November 26.

In May, Attorney General Chiesa met with Qatanani after he cleared the NYPD of breaking state laws. On July 24, Qatanani attended an Iftar dinner at the Governor’s Mansion. During his address, Christie pointed out Qatanani, calling him a “friend” and attacking his critics as anti-Muslim “bigots.”

Mohammed Younes

The President of the American Muslim Union, Mohammed Younes, is also on the Muslim outreach committee. This organization is very closely tied to the Hamas-linked Islamic Center of Passaic County led by Imam Qatanani, having had five common officials as of 2004. For example, Younes has served on the mosque’s board of trustees.

Younes sounds sympathetic to the cause of Hamas. He said in 2001, “I put myself in the Palestinians’ shoes, the suffering, the pain, the hunger. I don’t know what I would do. Are they dogs? Are they garbage? I don’t want to see anyone killed. But you can’t be selective.” He called the U.S. hypocritical for condemning Hamas but not Israel. However, he said he would not donate to Hamas because “they are killers,” but supports giving aid to the children of killed Hamas operatives.

During Qatanani’s deportation trial, Prosecutor Alan Wolf said that a pamphlet was found at the ICPC after the 9/11 attacks that explained what Muslims should not tell the police. Wolf also mentioned that a newspaper quoted Younes in 2002 where he advised against giving personal information to law enforcement. As he left, Younes complained, “The FBI is abusing us.”

Younes seems to have a pattern of defending guilty Islamists while accusing the government of misconduct. He defended the ICPC by saying it “did not know everywhere their money was going, and they would have not meant to give it to Hamas.” As mentioned, El-Mezain publicly stated that the fundraising was for Hamas. When five Muslims were convicted of planning to attack Fort Dix, Younes said, “I don’t think they actually meant to do anything. I think they were acting stupid, like they thought the whole thing was a joke.”

One common official between AMU and ICPC is Mohamed El-Filali. Media reports have titled him the executive director of ICPC, but the mosque’s website says he is the Outreach Director. IslamWeb described him as an AMU official in 2002. Joel Mowbray writes that the Associated Press identified him as an “Executive Committee member” of AMU around the time he led a rally that said Israeli Prime Minister Sharon is equivalent to Hitler. He refused to condemn suicide bombings, saying “I am not in their shoes. My house has not been destroyed; my brother has not been shot dead.” El-Filali met with Attorney General Chiesa after he cleared the NYPD.

Another concerning AMU official is Magdy Mahmoud. He was on the executive board of the Muslim Arab Youth Association at the same time as the FBI learned of extremist rhetoric at its events. In 1994, Hamas fundraiser Mohammed El-Mezain spoke for the group. He spoke after an individual that the audience was told led the “Hamas military wing.” An FBI report documents the speaker saying, “I’ve been told to restrict or restrain what I say … I hope no one is recording me or taking any pictures, as none are allowed … because I’m going to speak the truth to you. It’s simple. Finish off the Israelis. Kill them all! Exterminate them! No peace ever!”

Mahmoud was the chairman of the AMU’s Chapters Committee from 1999 to 2001. He is also the co-founder and a former president of the NJ chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), another unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror-funding trial. The federal government says CAIR is an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood’s Palestine Committee. A CAIR-NJ official met with Attorney General Chiesa after he cleared the NYPD.

Another official is Waheed Khalid, who is the chairman of AMU’s Bergen County chapter and the former president of Dar ul-Islah Mosque in Teaneck, N.J. In May 1998, he expressed sympathy for Hamas, saying, “They are trying to get the occupiers out of their home.” In 2002, he refused to comment on the authenticity of the anti-Semitic Protocols of the Elders of Zion but suggested it has credibility by saying that most people believe it. He also defended an Egyptian television show based on it, saying, “They have the right to show it, and I think it is news, and it is quite interesting to know what it says.”

In 2002, AMU sponsored a rally with the Muslim American Society, a Brotherhood front, and the pro-Hamas Islamic Association for Palestine, another Brotherhood front. The event demanded the indictment of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon as a war criminal and that the U.S. cut off aid to Israel. In contrast, the AMU did not endorse the 2005 “Free Muslims March Against Terror” that condemned all terrorist groups including Hamas, according to Discover the Networks.

In 2004, AMU’s online newsletter said a “Zionist commando orchestrated the 9-11 terrorist attacks” and praised Neturei Karta, a Jewish extremist group that supports Iranian President Ahmadinejad and the elimination of the state of Israel.

Governor Christie picked the AMU’s general counsel, Sohail Mohammed, to be a Superior Court Judge in 2011. Mohammed was the attorney for Imam Qatanani and also defended Sami al-Arian, who was convicted of being a Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader in the U.S. Christie reacted to the controversy over his appointment by saying, “This Sharia Law business is crap. It’s just crazy. And I’m tired of dealing with the crazies. I mean, you know, it’s just unnecessary to be accusing this guy of things just because of his religious background.”

Ahmed Shedeed

Muslim Brotherhood supporter Ahmed Shedeed is the president of the Islamic Center of Jersey City, an Islamist mosque. His Facebook page has a photo of him at a rally in New York City for Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood President Mohammed Morsi. He also “likes” the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party and three Arabic pages that have Morsi as their main photo, as well as the Muslim Brotherhood-linked Islamic Circle of North America. Shedeed repeatedly shares Brotherhood-themed photos on his page.

According to the Investigative Project on Terrorism, the Islamic Center of Jersey City has a history of links to extremism. Its director from 1978 to 1990, Mohammed Al-Hanooti, was the president of a pro-Hamas group called the Islamic Association for Palestine from 1984 to 1986. The American Muslim Brotherhood’s internal files identify it as one of its fronts. He also attended a secret Brotherhood-organized meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia in 1993. In the late 1990s, he served as the imam of the radical Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia, which has extensive Brotherhood and Hamas ties.

According to his biography from the website of an Islamist conference to be held in Chicago this month, al-Hanooti left the Islamic Center of Jersey City to serve as an imam at Qatanani’s ICPC from 1990 to 1995. From 1995 to 1999, he served as the imam of the radical Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Virginia, another mosque with extensive Brotherhood and Hamas ties. From 2000 to 2001, he was the imam of the Islamic Center of Capital District in Albany, New York.

Mohammad Salameh, a terrorist convicted for his role in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, often attended the mosque in the early 1990s. Al-Hanooti was also named a “possible unindicted co-conspirator” in the Trade Center plot.

In 2000, the mosque’s imam, Sayyid Askar, said that “jihad is an absolute obligation upon those land has been occupied, and all Muslims have to stand together to repulse the enemy.”

The Islamic Center of Jersey City’s website features Islamist preaching. It advises Muslims to respond to questions about jihad by attacking U.S. foreign policy:

“Why should we be on the defensive? Why don’t we adopt a more assertive attitude? If they confront us on one question, we should respond with ten of our own. If they ask us about jihad, we should ask them about America’s openly aggressive policies in many parts of the world, not to mention all of their covert operations.”

It also justifies jihad as a fight against oppression (which it previously accused the U.S. of being guilty of) and “worldly” rule:

“The Islamic teachings about jihad are what uproots oppression and guarantees people the freedom to think and to choose their religion for themselves without being under any compulsion. Islam seeks to have people freely submit themselves to their Creator and not be placed under the subjugation of any worldly dictator, race, tribe, or nationality.”

It preaches that the West is racist:

“We can stress how Islam teaches equality between all people. There is no preference for anyone over anyone else except by a person’s piety and virtue. This is the way to do away with the problem of racism that people in the West suffer from.”

It justifies polygamy:

“If they ask you about polygamy, ask them about the sexual promiscuity that is rife in their societies that has brought humiliation to so many women and allowed men to absolve themselves of their responsibilities towards them and towards their children?”

The ICJC’s website also links to an article asking the question, “Does Islam Allow Wife Beating?” The answer is yes, as long as it is warranted, the face is not touched and no marks are left. It explains, drawing upon the teaching of former Islamic Society of North America President Muzammil Siddiqi:

“However, in some cases, a husband may use some light disciplinary action in order to correct the moral infraction of his wife, but this is only applicable in extreme cases and it should be resorted to if one is sure it would improve the situation.”

“The Prophet (p.b.u.h.) explained it ‘dharban ghayra mubarrih’ which means ‘a light tap that leaves no mark.’ He further said that face must be avoided. Some other scholars are of the view that it is no more than a light touch by siwak, or toothbrush.”

“It is also important to note that even this "light strike" mentioned in the verse is not to be used to correct some minor problem, but it is permissible to resort to only in a situation of some serious moral misconduct when admonishing the wife fails, and avoiding from sleeping with her would not help. If this disciplinary action can correct a situation and save the marriage, then one should use it."

It then quotes from Jamal Badawi, another Islamic Society of North America official:

"There are cases, however, in which a wife persists in bad habits and showing contempt of her husband and disregard for her marital obligations. Instead of divorce, the husband may resort to another measure that may save the marriage, at least in some cases. Such a measure is more accurately described as a gentle tap on the body, but never on the face, making it more of a symbolic measure than a punitive one.”

“Based on Quran and Hadith, this measure may be used in the cases of lewdness on the part of the wife or extreme refraction and rejection of the husband's reasonable requests on a consistent basis (nushuz). Even then, other measures, such as exhortation, should be tried first.”

“As defined by Hadith, it is not permissible to strike anyone's face, cause any bodily harm or even be harsh. What the Hadith qualifies as ‘dharban ghayra mubarrih,’ or light striking, was interpreted by early jurists as a (symbolic) use of siwak! They further qualified permissible ‘striking’ as that which leaves no mark on the body.”

Imam Abdul Basit

Qari Abdul Basit is the imam of the New Brunswick Islamic Center, a mosque founded in 1987 by the Islamist cleric Zaid Shakir, who continues to be a guest lecturer. In 2006, the New York Times reported that Shakir said “he still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law.”

Shakir legitimizes attacks on U.S. troops, specifically the hijacking of airplanes transporting soldiers. He argues that the 1983 Marine barracks bombing by Hezbollah was not an act of terrorism. In April, he wrote a poem about how U.S. soldiers rape girls and murder Muslim civilians. In September, he coupled his condemnation of the murder of U.S. Ambassador Stevens with a condemnation of how four Afghan women, in his view, were “brutally murdered by NATO bombs.”

Shakir believes in 9/11 conspiracy theories and accuses the U.S. of “demonizing” Osama Bin Laden, the Taliban, Saddam Hussein and Hugo Chavez, while characterizing Al-Qaeda, Hamas and other Islamist terrorists as fighters against oppression, though he condemns some of their tactics. In 2003, he preached that the U.S. is waging a war on Islam and Muslim-Americans should wage jihad through institution-building.

The Center has gotten funding from Saudi King Fahd. The Saudi government promotes a radical version of Islam often called “Wahhabism.” On July 7, the New Brunswick Islamic Center hosted an Islamic Society of North America seminar about Sharia. FBI investigators identified ISNA as a Muslim Brotherhood front as early as 1987. A U.S. Muslim Brotherhood strategy document from 1991 lists ISNA among “organizations and the organizations of our friends.” ISNA was also designated an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation affair, the largest terrorism-financing trial in U.S. history. The federal government said is an entity of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.

The ISNA event at Imam Abdul Basit’s New Brunswick Islamic Center featured numerous Islamists. This includes the aforementioned Muzammil Siddiqi who explained the limitations of wife-beating. In 2001, he expressed his hope that Sharia law, including its criminal law, would one day be implemented in the U.S. He also supports Muslim countries that have the death penalty for homosexuals and suggests that Muslims were not involved in the 9/11 attacks.

Siddiqi taught about worshipping Allah and community engagement. Joining him in the latter session was Saffet Catovic, who used to be the New York representative of Benevolence International, a charity shut down for its ties to Al-Qaeda. In 1992, Catovic spoke at an Islamic Association for Palestine conference (a Brotherhood entity) where he said the “long-range” goal is building an Islamic Caliphate. He also spoke at a military-themed “Jihad Camp” in 2001.

Teaching about Sharia was Imam Qatanani and Jamal Badawi. Badawi is another unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land trial because he raised funds for the Hamas front. His name is in a 1992 U.S. Muslim Brotherhood phone directory. He has justified suicide bombings and refers to Hamas terrorists as “martyrs.” He also explicitly endorsed Palestinian “combative jihad” in 2010. Badawi also spoke about how Muslims can implement Sharia in their own lives.

Ryan Mauro is RadicalIslam.org's National Security Analyst and a fellow with the Clarion Fund. He is the founder of WorldThreats.com and is frequently interviewed on Fox News.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

As I read this article GM, that's not fair. Did you catch the part about taking advice from Dr. Laura? (who is Jewish btw) IMHO I respect that they are seeking to maintain values based around building strong families/homes.

Originally published November 9, 2012 at 12:18 p.m., updated November 9, 2012 at 7:33 p.m.

EL CAJON — The eight-month investigation into the beating death of an Iraqi woman in her El Cajon dining room has led to the arrest of her husband, police announced Friday, putting to rest any notion that the mother of five was the victim of a hate crime.

Kassim Alhimidi, 48, was arrested at the El Cajon police station Thursday evening and booked into jail on one count of murder in the slaying of Shaima Alawadi.

He is being held without bail and is scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday.

Alawadi, 32, was apparently planning to divorce her husband and move with her children to Texas, her brother, Hass Alawadi, told U-T San Diego. He said the husband had known about her plans to divorce for quite some time.

“After months of hard work, ... we determined this homicide was the result of domestic violence and not a hate crime,” El Cajon Police Chief Jim Redman said at a news conference Friday.

Investigators did not discuss possible motive or evidence in the case. No other arrests have been made, Redman said.

Alawadi was attacked at the family’s Skyview Street home March 21, when her husband had reportedly left to take their four younger children to school. She was struck on the head at least six times and suffered four skull fractures, according to court records. She was taken off of life support three days later.

A threatening note that called the family terrorists and told them to go back where they came from was found near her body. The handwritten note turned out to be a copy, not an original, according to court records. The family said a similar note had been left on their door weeks earlier, but they did not report the incident to police or keep the note.

The early implications that the slaying was a possible hate crime spawned international attention, especially among the Muslim community. Peace rallies and candlelight vigils promoting unity and a Muslim woman’s right to wear a head scarf spread throughout the world.

Alhimidi and his children gave tearful interviews to the media in the days following the slaying, and the widower was seen crying over his wife’s casket during her funeral in Iraq, at one point fainting.

In an interview a week after the killing, her husband told the Arabic Al Arabiya News: “My wife was a victim of xenophobia.”

But court records obtained at El Cajon Superior Court showed a family in turmoil.

Police who searched the home after the slaying found court paperwork to file for divorce in Alawadi’s Ford Explorer. The packet was still blank, but a form requesting a wavier of court fees was filled out in handwriting with Alawadi’s name, address and phone number.

The couple hailed from the same city of al-Samawa in southern Iraq, and they married in a refugee camp in Saudi Arabia before moving to the U.S., Alhimidi told Al Arabiya. The husband, who had suffered health problems, was on disability and hadn’t worked in years, and his wife was a homemaker.

The couple’s 17-year-old daughter, Fatima Alhimidi, was also distraught about a pending arranged marriage to a cousin, the court documents show. She had attempted suicide five months earlier by jumping out of her mother’s moving car.

According to police, the fatal attack on Alawadi occurred about 11 a.m., when only Alawadi and Fatima were reportedly home.

Fatima told police she was in her bedroom when she heard her mother squeal, and about 10 seconds later heard the sound of glass breaking, according to a search warrant affidavit. She thought maybe her mom had dropped a plate.

When she went downstairs 10 minutes later, she found her mother lying unconscious on the ground, in the dining room near a computer, and called 911. A window was broken nearby.

An autopsy report described the assault as “extremely violent” and said the injuries may have been caused by a tire iron.

A neighbor reported seeing a skinny dark-skinned young man running in the area west of the family’s home after the slaying. He was carrying a brown doughnut-shaped box.

While Fatima was being interviewed by police the afternoon of her mother’s beating, a text message was sent from her phone to an unknown person, reading: “The detective will find out tell them cnt talk,” according to the affidavit.

Investigators have not revealed who may have sent the text, or to whom.

A week after the killing, police were still working on confirming the husband’s whereabouts at the time of the attack.

The widower and his eldest children traveled to Iraq for the funeral, staying for several weeks. Chief Redman said the husband was not considered a suspect at that time and could not be legally stopped from leaving the United States.

When the family returned to San Diego, they moved from their home on Skyview into a townhouse. Alhimidi tried to get his children’s lives back to normal, with school, prayer and sports, a family friend said at the time.

Police released no updates on the case in the ensuing months, frustrating Alawadi’s family in Texas and deepening the mystery.

“There were many aspects of this case that needed to be looked into, there were cultural issues that needed to be looked into, there were many witnesses,” the police chief said of the eight months of investigation. “Sometimes homicide investigations just take time. We were diligent in the investigation, and it culminated with an arrest.”

In jailhouse interviews with news stations Friday, Alhimidi denied any involvement in his wife’s slaying and insisted it was still a hate crime. Police told him that pings from his cellphone put him near the home at the time of the assault, he told 10News.

The couple’s four youngest children are in protective custody, the chief said.

Alawadi’s cousin, Hussain Alawadi, said news of the arrest surprised the family, and he commended police on their investigation.

“We are very happy to hear they arrested him,” he said. “We were stressed. We need to know who’s doing these things.”

Family friend Nazanin Wahid, who had been following the case closely, was also shocked.

“There were so many twists and turns to this case, it’s hard to know what to believe,” Wahid said.

Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on Islamic-American Relations said, “Since the beginning our ultimate goal was to get justice for Sister Shaima Alawadi.”

He referred to the case as “a family tragedy,” and said that domestic violence “has no place in our faith.”

“She has been a piece of our heart,” Mohebi said of Alawadi. “We need to do what we can to bring about justice.”

Hanif Mohebi, executive director of the San Diego chapter of the Council on Islamic-American Relations said, “Since the beginning our ultimate goal was to get justice for Sister Shaima Alawadi.”

He referred to the case as “a family tragedy,” and said that domestic violence “has no place in our faith.”

“She has been a piece of our heart,” Mohebi said of Alawadi. “We need to do what we can to bring about justice.”

This is the typical lying engaged in by CAIR - which is trying to appear sympathetic to the victim in order to appear reasonable to non-Muslims in this country. The reality is that Mohebi MOST LIKELY KNEW FROM THE START that this was very likely an attack by the husband on the wife to "salvage his honor." This is all-too-common in Islamic countries, and is becoming common here in the U.S., although it is only in the last year or two that it has been reported widely - largely thanks to people such as Wafa Sultan, Nonie Darwish, Jamie Glazov, Robert Spencer, and yes - Pamela Geller - who are demanding that these incidents be exposed for what they truly are. Framing the murder as a "hate crime" is a common tactic used by Muslim family members and CAIR to hide the truth about these honor killiings.

Logged

"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

James M. Arlandson: Domestic Violence In Early IslamDomestic Violence In Early IslamCan Modern Islam Stop the Abuse?by James M. Arlandson, Ph.D.

This series of articles about Islamic shariah law is written for journalists, educators, lawyers, judges, city council members, legislators, government bureaucrats, think tank fellows, TV and radio talk show hosts, and anyone else who occupies the “check points” in society. They initiate the national dialogue and shape the flow of the conversation. They are the policy and decision makers.

They have heard the critics of shariah and conclude that the critics are exaggerating (and maybe some have overstated things). The critics may even be “Islamophobes.” Islam is a world religion and deserves respect, after all.

Yet the intellectual elites may also have a private, gnawing doubt about shariah, for they have heard accounts of abuse in the Islamic world, even in the Muslim community within their own country. But they say to themselves that Islam is being hijacked by extremists.

Online articles and websites have sprung up that communicate, among others things, an essential message: there is nothing wrong with shariah.

For example, Summer Hathout is a prosecutor in Los Angeles, an activist for women’s rights, and a Muslim. She belongs to the Muslim Women’s League, USA. She denies that shariah promotes domestic violence, concluding in her short online article:

To those of us who know Islam and the Quran, violence against women is so antithetical to the teachings of Islam that we look at those who use our religion against us as misguided, misinformed or malevolent.[1]

But what does the other side in Islam say?

Saudi Iqraa TV aired a talk show that discussed this issue.[2] Jasem Muhammad Al-Mutawah, a scholar on family issues, holds a sample rod that husbands may use to hit their wives. He says:

There is a wife with whom using hard words is useful, and there is a wife with whom it is not. There is a wife with whom using quiet, good words is useful, in contrast, there is a wife with whom if you use hard words her obstinacy will only increase, and thus the problem will get worse. In contrast, there is a wife with whom the situation is the opposite: If you use calm words with her, she will not grasp them, and the problem will continue… We all know that Allah has given authority to the man, including admonishing and guiding the wife in cases of disobedience, banishing her from the bed, and then – the beatings.[3]Both statements are by Muslims. Has the Saudi scholar hijacked true Islam? Where is the truth between the two opinions?

And if original Islamic shariah permits wife beating, can modern Islam rescue women from the abuse?

THE QURANTHE HADITH AND ONE OTHER SOURCEGreen SkinNo Sex after BeatingNot with SeverityWhat Muhammad DidChange of MindBeating for DisobedienceNot on the FaceUmar’s OpinionCLASSICAL ISLAMMODERN ISLAMTraditional InterpretationsModerate InterpretationsCONCLUSIONTHE QURANQuran 4:34, which should be read carefully, says that husbands may hit or beat their wives.

34 Husbands should take full care of their wives, with [the bounties] God has given to some more than others and with what they spend out of their own money. Righteous wives are devout and guard what God would have them guard in the husbands’ absence. If you fear high-handedness from your wives, remind them [of the teaching of God], then ignore them when you go to bed, then hit them. If they obey you, you have no right to act against them. God is most high and great.[4] (Quran 4:34)In the next translation of the verse, Abdullah Yusuf Ali adds notes in parenthesis, which are not original to the Arabic. The sequence of steps and the implied soft meaning of “beat them (lightly)” are as follows:34 ... As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (next), refuse to share their beds, (and last) beat them (lightly)... (Quran 4:34) The third version of the verse by Ahmed Ali translates the relevant line by adding parenthetic glosses not originally found in Arabic. Worse, he badly mistranslates the Arabic word for hitting or beating:34... As for women you feel are averse, talk to them suasively; then leave them alone in bed (without molesting them) and go to bed with them (when they are willing)[5]. . . (Quran 4:34)Thus the word for hitting or beating has vanished. This latter translation flatly contradicts the two cited above and many others: “beat” (Fakhry); “scourge” (Pickthall); “beat” (Dawood); “beat (lightly)” (Hilali and Khan); “chastise” (Maulana); “chastise” (Khan); “beat” (translator of Maududi); “beat” (translators of Sayyid Qutb); “beat” (Committee of Muslim translators of Ibn Kathir); “beat” (Shakir); “chastise” (Khalifa); “beat” (Sher Ali); and “beat” (Asad). The word they are translating is daraba (root is d-r-b). Hathout comments erroneously, “The Quran itself uses daraba 16 times, and in nine of those instances, the meaning is to separate or depart.”[6] However, it is used about 58 times, and the context determines its meaning. Sometimes it can mean, for example, “to strike a similitude or example”; or “strike out on a journey.” [7]

According to the hadith in the next section, daraba in 4:34 can only mean to “hit” or “beat.” Husbands are not striking their wives with a similitude or out on a journey. None of those two meanings make sense in the context of v. 34. In contrast, Ahmed Ali’s wording, which the activist and attorney Hathout latches on to despite the numerous translators who disagree with Ali and her, distorts the plain meaning of the words by a clever linguistic sleight-of-hand (see below, Modern Islam).[8]

Since this verse is so controversial we should look at the historical and literary contexts, which can be summarized by Sayyid Abdul A’la Maududi (d. 1979), who was an Indo-Pakistani scholar who wrote a multivolume commentary on the Quran. He says that Chapter 4, itself titled “Women,” was revealed at different times, but still in the timeframe of A.D. 625 to 626.[9]

Muhammad is establishing his Muslim community in Medina in the face of opposition and adverse circumstances, though Islam manages to overcome them. Verse 34 fits into the framework of vv. 1-35, which sees the specific establishment of rules for the family. For instance, in the aftermath of the Battle of Uhud in 625, in which the Muslims lost a lot of men, Muhammad says that orphans should be given their property and not to replace their good things with bad, which means to deal fairly and wisely with their assets (vv. 1-6).

Also, Muhammad discusses the rules for inheriting property, such as one son having the share equal to two daughters or that a husband should inherent half of his wife’s property, unless they have children, in which case he inherits one-fourth (vv. 11-14). Then, if women or men in a segment of Muslim society commit lewd acts, they should be punished, unless they repent (vv. 15-18). Next, a large section deals with marriage rules, like not marrying mothers, daughters, sisters and so on (vv. 19-28). Finally, he lays down rules against greed and murder, and again returns to a law of inheritance (vv. 29-33).

Thus, it is in this family environment that the targeted v. 34 is located, and Muhammad lays out yet one more rule in v. 34 – how to deal with an unruly or rebellious wife.

THE HADITH AND ONE OTHER SOURCEThe hadith are the narrations or traditions about the words and deeds of Muhammad and his companions outside of the Quran. Sunni Islam takes them very seriously. For more discussion of the hadith, see the article in this series, titled What Is Shariah? We also include early biographer Ibn Ishaq (d. 767) as the other source. He is considered reliable by modern historians (except for the miracles and some chronology).

All the sources, together, form a coherent picture about domestic violence in original Islam. Green SkinBukhari (d. 870) reports this incident about widespread spousal abuse in the early Muslim community in the context of marital confusion:

Rifa'a divorced his wife whereupon 'Abdur Rahman bin Az-Zubair Al-Qurazi married her. Aisha said that the lady (came), wearing a green veil (and complained to her [Aisha] of her husband and showed her a green spot on her skin caused by beating). It was the habit of ladies to support each other, so when Allah's Apostle came, 'Aisha said, "I have not seen any woman suffering as much as the believing women. Look! Her skin is greener than her clothes!"[10]

One of the frequent claims about Islam is that it improved women’s life compared with the so-called Time of Ignorance before Islam arrived on the scene. But Aisha says she never saw suffering as much as the believing (Muslim) women suffer.

No Sex after BeatingIn the next hadith Muhammad says that a man should not beat his wife like a slave and expect to have sex with her later that night.

Narrated Abdullah bin Zama: The Prophets said, "None of you should flog his wife as he flogs a slave and then have sexual intercourse with her in the last part of the day."[11]

The main point is that the wife is better than a slave, so her husband should not hit her as if she were one – severely – if he wants sex later. But he can still beat her.[12]

Not with SeverityIbn Ishaq (d. 767) was a biographer of Muhammad and not a hadith collector. He confirms that husbands should not beat their wives with severity. He summarizes this part of one of Muhammad’s sermon, which was delivered during his last pilgrimage to Mecca and heard by thousands:

You have rights over your wives and they have rights over you. You have the right that they should not defile your bed and that they should not behave with open unseemliness. If they do, God allows you to put them in separate rooms and to beat them but not with severity. If they refrain from these things, they have the right to their food and clothing with kindness. Lay injunctions on women kindly, for they are prisoners with you having no control of their own persons.[13]

This sermon reveals that Muhammad sees the hitting of wives only in egregious circumstances, like “open unseemliness.” It also repeats the counsel that husbands should at first separate from such wives and only afterwards apply physical force. Nonetheless, the sermon affirms that wives are like prisoners and have no control over their own persons.

The next hadith from Muslim’s hadith collection shows Muhammad matter-of-factly sizing up three men for a recent divorcee to marry. One of them is a “great beater of women.” Muhammad does imply that the man’s excessive hitting does not make him the best choice for the divorcee. However, what is of interest is that Muhammad does nothing to control him.

Fatima bint Qais... reported that her husband divorced her with three pronouncements and Allah's Messenger... made no provision for her lodging and maintenance allowance. She (further said): Allah's Messenger... said to me: When your period of 'Idda is over, inform me. So I informed him. (By that time) Muawiya. Abu Jahm and Usama b. Zaid had given her the proposal of marriage. Allah's Messenger... said: So far as Muawiya is concerned he is a poor man without any property. So far as Abu Jahm is concerned, he is a great beater of women but Usama b. Zaid... She pointed with her hand (that she did not approve of the idea of marrying) Usama. But Allah's Messenger... said: Obedience to Allah and obedience to His Messenger is better for thee. She said: So I married him, and I became an object of envy.[14]

What Muhammad DidThe following report is narrated by Aisha, Muhammad’s favorite young girl-wife. The context shows Muhammad going out of the house to visit a graveyard and pray over the dead. Aisha followed him. She returned just before he did, but he noticed she was out of breath and asked her why.

...He [Muhammad] came (to the house) and I [Aisha] also came (to the house). I, however, preceded him and I entered (the house), and as I lay down in the bed, he (the Holy Prophet) entered the (house), and said: Why is it, Aisha, that you are out of breath? I said: There is nothing. He said: Tell me or the Subtle and the Aware would inform me. I said: Messenger of Allah, may my father and mother be ransom for you, and then I told him (the whole story). He said: Was it the darkness (of your shadow) that I saw in front of me? I said: Yes. He struck me on the chest which caused me pain.[15]...

The last clause is the key. He struck her on the chest and caused her pain.

Change of MindThe next passage from Abu Dawud’s collection records Muhammad at first saying that husbands should not beat their wives. But Umar, one of his chief companions and the future second caliph, informed him that the wives were becoming “emboldened towards their husbands.” So now Muhammad changes his mind and allows husbands to hit:

Iyas b. Abd Allah b. Abi Dhubab reported the Apostle of Allah... as saying: Do not beat Allah's handmaidens, but when Umar [the future second caliph] came to the Apostle of Allah... and said: Women have become emboldened towards their husbands, he (the Prophet) gave permission to beat them. Then many women came round the family of the Apostle of Allah... complaining against their husbands. So the Apostle of Allah... said: Many women have gone round Muhammad's family complaining against their husbands. They are not the best among you.[16]

The men are not the best for beating their wives, so that offers a little hope for the wives. But what is disappointing is that Muhammad did not put a stop to the violence immediately. Beating for DisobedienceThen a woman complains that her husband beats her because she recites two chapters in the Quran while she is praying. Her husband prohibited it, but she did it anyway. Muhammad said to recite only one chapter.

Abu Said said: A woman came to the Prophet... while we were with him. She said: Apostle of Allah, my husband Safwan b. al-Muattai beats me when I pray, and makes me break my fast when I keep fast, and he does not offer dawn prayer until the sun rises.· He asked Safwan who was present there about what she said. He replied: Apostle of Allah, as for her statement "he beats me when I pray," she recites two suras [chapters in the Quran] (during prayer) and I have prohibited her (to do so). He (the Prophet) said: If one sura is recited (during prayer), that is sufficient for the people.[17]...

The hadith goes on to show Muhammad conforming to the husband’s wishes in the wife’s complaints against him about his making her break her fast and his not praying early in the morning. The husband has absolute control. And why would Muhammad forbid him from hitting her when the Quran permits it? But why does the Quran permit it? Devout Muslim scholars say Allah revealed it. The rest of us are doubtful.Not on the FaceThis one in Abu Dawud’s collection says not to hit her on the face:

Narrated Mu'awiyah al-Qushayri: Mu'awiyah asked: Apostle of Allah, what is the right of the wife of one of us over him? He replied: That you should give her food when you eat, clothe her when you clothe yourself, do not strike her on the face, do not revile her or separate yourself from her except in the house.[18]

And this parallel hadith says not to beat the wives.Narrated Mu'awiyah al-Qushayri: I went to the Apostle of Allah … and asked him: What do you say (command) about our wives? He replied: Give them food what you have for yourself, and clothe them by which you clothe yourself, and do not beat them, and do not revile them.[19]

Clearly, the second one is intended to be clarified by the first – not on the face. But the second one does give a glimmer of hope to reform, even though, as written, the hadith contradicts the Quran.

Umar’s OpinionBefore leaving Sunan Abu Dawud, we should look at a short hadith, which says:

Umar b. al-Kattab reported the Prophet... as saying: A man will not be asked as to why he beat his wife.[20]

Umar was soon to become the second caliph after Muhammad’s death in A.D. 632. Umar reigned from 634-644. The hadith is not exactly clear unless we are overlooking the obvious. The permission to beat will be so well known throughout the Muslim community that no one will question it. Or does Umar believe that beating will become so rare that no one will ask about it (an unrealistic prediction)? Either way, hitting is still in the Quran and in real life, especially when Umar was alive. He even recommended it (see below in the Classical Law section)[21]

CLASSICAL LAWThis body of law is founded on the Quran and hadith, as jurists searched through both to make rulings on various issues. For more discussion, see the article titled, What Is Shariah? in the series.

Only a fraction of classical Islamic law books has been translated into English, and the ones that have do not cover wife beating, except two. The jurists would have the need to rule on the topic in a family court, if the wife lodged a complaint. The reason for the oversight in the translated ones can only be guessed at, but it is probable that the Quran is so clear about wife beating that there was no need for the jurists to debate the matter.

Whatever the reason, we can be confident that the two translated law books book examined here represent the views of the other schools of law, precisely because, as mentioned, the Quran is so clear.

Ahmad ibn Naqib al-Misri’s (d. 1368) Reliance of the Traveler: A Classic Manual of Islamic Sacred Law summarizes rulings in the Shafi’i School of law. Misri and two later scholars opine:

When a husband notices signs of rebelliousness in his wife... (O: whether in words, as when she answers him coldly when she used to do so politely. or he asks her to come to bed and she refuses, contrary to her usual habit; or whether in acts, as when he finds her averse to him when she was previously kind and cheerful), he warns her in words (O: without keeping from her or hitting her, for it may be that she has an excuse. The warning could be to tell her, "Fear Allah concerning the rights you owe to me," or it could be to explain that rebelliousness nullifies his obligation to support her and give her a turn amongst other wives, or it could be to inform her, "Your obeying me... is religiously obligatory"). If she commits rebelliousness, he keeps from sleeping (O: and having sex) with her without words, and may hit her, but not in a way that injures her, meaning he may not (A: bruise her,) break bones, wound her, or cause blood to flow. (O: It is unlawful to strike another's face.) He may hit her whether she is rebellious only once or whether more than once, though a weaker opinion holds that he may not hit her unless there is repeated rebelliousness.[22]

Those opinions put limits on the husband’s permission to hit his wife: he may not break bones, wound, cause bleeding, or strike her face.

The above opinion says that husbands may hit their wives if they rebel. Misri and later scholars define rebellion as follows:

The Prophet... said: (1) "Allah will not look at a woman who is ungrateful to her husband, while unable to do without him." (2) "When a man calls his wife to his bed and she will not come, and he spends the night angry with her, the angels curse her until morning." (3) "It is not lawful for a woman to fast when her husband is present, save by his leave, nor to permit anyone into his house except with his permission." (4) "Whoever leaves her husband's house [A: without his permission], the angels curse her until she returns or repents." (Khalil Nahlawi:) It is a condition for the permissibility of her going out... that she takes no measures to enhance her beauty, and that her figure is concealed or altered to a form unlikely to draw looks from men or attract them. Allah Most High says, "Remain in your homes and do not display your beauty as women did in the pre-Islamic period of ignorance." (Quran 33:33)[23]Malik (d. 795), a founder of a major school of law and also a reliable hadith collector and editor, records a hadith that shows Umar, the second caliph (r. 634-644), commanding a husband to beat his wife because she tried to stop her husband from having sex with his slave girl; the wife thought she could stop him by establishing a too-close relationship with the slave girl. The wife got suckled; that is, the wife got nursed by the slave girl. Then the slave would become a foster relative, like a foster mother of sorts, and so sex between her husband and the slave girl would become illegal.

Yahya related to me from Malik that Abdullah ibn Dinar said, "A man came to Abdullah ibn Umar when I was with him at the place where judgments were given and asked him about the suckling of an older person. Abdullah ibn Umar replied, 'A man came to Umar ibn al-Khattab and said, “I have a slave girl and I used to have intercourse with her. My wife went to her and suckled her. When I went to the girl, my wife told me to watch out because she had suckled her!”’ Umar told him to beat his wife and to go to his slave-girl because kinship by suckling was only by the suckling of the young."[24]The wife went to extreme measures to get her husband to stop having sex with his slave girl. But Islam allowed it. Please see the article in this series about slavery.

As witnessed by my ample posts on this very thread and throughout this forum thoroughly witness, I am well aware of what you post.

However, I stand by my notion that what is relevant here is THIS woman and HER actions. Though the source, Pravda on the Beach (a.k.a. The Left Angeles Times) is suspect, I submit that there is nothing in this article to suggest it is other than as presented.

Anti-tax promoter Grover Norquist is losing his vice-like grip on the Republican party. The head of Americans for Tax Reform, who as recently as last year counted 238 members of the House and 41 members of the Senate among those who had signed his anti-tax pledge, has seen those numbers decline to 217 in the House, one shy of the 218 needed for a majority, and 39 in the Senate.

Both totals represent an all-time low. Last Wednesday, Senator Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) disavowed his pledge not to raise taxes, even as he acknowledged doing so could hurt his reelection chances in 2014. ”I don’t worry about that because I care too much about my country,” he said. “I care a lot more about it than I do Grover Norquist.” Americans might not like seeing their taxes go up, but Grover Norquist’s fall from grace has its benefits: As he goes down, so goes his pro-Islamist agenda.

That agenda was laid bare by Rep. Frank Wolf (R-VA) in a speech on the House floor, October 4, 2011. “My conscience has compelled me to come to the floor today to voice concerns I have with the influence Grover Norquist, the president of Americans for Tax Reform, has on the political process in Washington,” said Wolf. “My issue is not with ATR’s goal of keeping taxes low ... My concern is with the other individuals, groups and causes with whom Mr. Norquist is associated that have nothing to do with keeping taxes low.”

In 2004, Alamoudi, one of the most prominent and influential Muslim Brothers in the United States, was sentenced to 23 years in prison for supporting terror. Alamoudi, a self-described supporter of Hamas and Hezbollah, had cultivated ties with the Clinton White House that eventually enabled him and his associates to select, train and certify Muslim chaplains for the U.S. military.

Fearing a loss by Al Gore in the 2000 presidential election, Alamoudi befriended Norquist to ensure his access to senior levels of the U.S. government would be maintained if Republicans took charge. He gave Norquist $20,000 to establish the Islamic Free Market Institute and Alamoudi’s longtime deputy, Khaled Saffuri, became the founding director.

Norquist and Saffuri eventually became an integral part of the Bush administration’s Muslim outreach efforts during the 2000 campaign, with Saffuri named as Muslim Outreach Coordinator. During that campaign, Bush was also introduced to Sami Al-Arian. In 2006, Al-Arian was sentenced to 57 months in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy to provide support to the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ).

Wolf illuminated the bigger picture of that relationship, noting that Norquist was an “outspoken supporter of Al-Arian’s effort to end the use of classified evidence in terror trials.”

Al-Arian ran the National Coalition to Protect Political Freedom (NCPPF), and Norquist supported their efforts to weaken or repeal the Patriot Act as well, despite the terrorist atrocities perpetrated on 9/11.

Wolf also revealed that Norquist “was scheduled to lead a delegation to the White House on September 11, 2001, that included a convicted felon and some who would later be identified by federal law enforcement as suspected terrorist financiers.” One of the members of that delegation was Omar Ahmed, co-founder of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). CAIR was named an un-indicted co-conspirator when the Holy Land Foundation was convicted of sending million of dollars in funding to Hamas and other Islamic terrorist organizations.

Another relationship Norquist cultivated was with Suhail Khan, who has ties to a variety of Islamist movements. Khan’s father, the late Mahboob Khan, was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and one of the founders of the Muslim Students Association (MSA), whose anti-Semitic activities at American colleges has been documented on numerous occasions, including their latest attempt to organize a divestment campaign against Israel at the University of California, Irvine.

In 2007, Norquist promoted Suhail Khan’s candidacy for election to the American Conservative Union’s (ACU) board of directors. He was subsequently appointed. In 2012, at an irregular meeting of that organization, the board voted to dismiss accusations made against both Khan and Norquist by Frank Gaffney, head of the Center for Security Policy and a former defense official in the Reagan administration.

Gaffney has been hammered by the ACU and others for suggesting that the influence of the Muslim Brotherhood reached the highest levels of the U.S. government despite the reality that it was Gaffney who drew attention to Abdurahman Alamoudi and Sami Al-Arian, both of whom ended up as convicted felons for their terrorist activity. Yet it is Gaffney’s credibility that has been called into question for daring to draw attention to Norquist’s unseemly activity.

Wolf also pointed out that Norquist was “an outspoken advocate for moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States,” and “led a public campaign to undermine Republican-led efforts to block the Obama Administration’s transfer of 9/11 mastermind Khaled Sheik Mohammed to New York City” in 2009.

In 2010, Norquist inserted himself into the Ground Zero Mosque controversy, which he characterized as a “Monica Lewinsky ploy,” distracting from the core Republican message heading into the 2010 elections. Yet according to Wolf, Norquist “used Americans for Tax Reform to circulate a petition in support of the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’” completely undermining his own contention that the issue was a distraction.

For years, Grover Norquist’s reputation as a staunch anti-tax advocate has overshadowed his dubious associations with Islamists, and anyone who has dared to criticize him for those associations has drawn rebuke from both sides of the aisle.

Thus, it is more than a little ironic that his ability to influence Republicans with respect to taxes is waning, even as Islamists, most notably Mohammed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, who are attempting to establish a dictatorship in Egypt, are becoming ever more powerful.

Sen. Chambliss isn’t the only Republican distancing himself from Norquist. House Speaker John A. Boehner (R-OH) has referred to him as “some random person.” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) noted that “fewer and fewer people are signing this, quote, pledge.” Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK.) called the pledge a “tortured vision of tax purity.” House newcomer Rep. Ted Yoho, (R-FL), who declined to sign the pledge, was sarcastic. “I’ll pledge allegiance to the flag. I’ll pledge to be faithful to my wife,” he quipped.

Yet it was Rep. Peter King (R-NY) who best summed up the growing rebellion. “A pledge is good at the time you sign it,” he said. “In 1941, I would have voted to declare war on Japan. But each Congress is a new Congress. And I don’t think you can have a rule that you’re never going to raise taxes or that you’re never going to lower taxes. I don’t want to rule anything out.”

Republicans can resist raising taxes without signing a pledge should they choose to do so for the good of the nation. Yet without the pledge Grover Norquist has long wielded like a hammer, his leverage among Republicans is precipitously diminished. Considering his dubious ties to Islamists and their agenda, that’s more than a reasonable tradeoff.

Any article that discusses women in islam and doesn't mention the very real issues women face under islamic oppression both in the islamic world and here in the US, is nothing more than a CAIR propaganda piece and worthy of disdain.

As witnessed by my ample posts on this very thread and throughout this forum thoroughly witness, I am well aware of what you post.

However, I stand by my notion that what is relevant here is THIS woman and HER actions. Though the source, Pravda on the Beach (a.k.a. The Left Angeles Times) is suspect, I submit that there is nothing in this article to suggest it is other than as presented.

The head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) vows to complain to U.S. Department of Homeland Security officials after they blocked a radical Saudi cleric from entering the country this week to attend a national Islamist conference in Chicago.

Sheikh Ayed al-Qarni was scheduled to speak twice during the Muslim American-Society (MAS)/Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA) national convention Dec. 22-25. But a statement released during the convention expressed "the unpleasant and saddening news" that al-Qarni had been removed from his flight from Saudi Arabia despite having a visa from the U.S. embassy, and that he appears to be on the U.S. "no-fly list." Al-Qarni is described as "one of our great speakers" and as someone known "for his logical discourse and balanced views, he promotes understanding and collaboration between all people, regardless of their faith, background, or language."

Al-Qarni has advocated jihad in the past and his preaching on the subject has been described as influential among al-Qaida followers.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad told an Arabic news outlet that he would protest al-Qarni's exclusion with DHS and State Department officials. "We defend all Muslims who are subject to arbitrary measure, and by this logic, we will act but not formally plead, unless we obtain authorization from him."

It's an ironic protest to make in light of a public relations campaign orchestrated by CAIR's Chicago chapter. "MyJihad" aims to show non-Muslims that the term jihad is more about peaceful, personal attempts at overcoming challenges than about calls for violence and terror.

Through Awad, also a listed speaker at the convention, CAIR is fighting to bring a Saudi cleric into the United States who has argued the exact opposite message. During a 2005 sermon flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), al-Qarni called the jihad against American forces in Fallujah "a source of pride … downing their planes, destroying equipment, slaughtering them, taking them hostage, and proclaiming 'Allah Akhbar' from the mosques, and the worshippers and the preacher cursing them in their prayers, and then come others begging for forgiveness, and requesting a dialogue and a ceasefire and negotiations. Who can say even one word against this true Jihad against these colonialist occupiers?" [Emphasis added]

He belittled Muslims who failed to take action, including "harming the Jews." He invoked Israel's targeted killings of Hamas leaders Ahmed Yassin and Abdel-Aziz Rantisi, saying he prayed that Allah "will destroy the Jews and their helpers from among the Christians and the Communists, and that He will turn them into the Muslims' spoils. I praise the Jihad, the sacrifice, and the resistance against the occupiers in Iraq. We curse them all of them every night and pray that Allah will annihilate them, tear them apart, and grant us victory over them..."

"Throats must be slit and skulls must be shattered," al-Qarni said. "This is the path to victory, to shahada, and to sacrifice."

"We were also influenced by the sermons delivered by some speakers in the mosques in Jedda about jihad in Afghanistan. The cassettes on jihad that influenced us most were those by Shaykh A'id [Ayed] al-Qarni, especially the first cassette, titled 'Nights in Afghanistan,' and the second cassette, 'The Afghanistan I saw. Al-Qarni used to speak, enjoin, and call for jihad in an astonishing way."

Al-Qarni also attracted Western attention in 2004 when he called it a sin for women to drive cars in Saudi Arabia. The practice would spread corruption and lead to "mingling between the sexes, men being alone with women and the destruction of the family and society in whole."

On top of all that, he has been accused of intellectual dishonesty. Saudi Arabia's Ministry of Culture and Information fined al-Qarni 300,000 Saudi riyals earlier this year for allegedly plagiarizing chapters from a book by a Saudi woman.

But even with al-Qarni's absence, the MAS-ICNA conference still featured speakers who advocate violent jihad. Among them, Kifah Mustapha spoke at, and promoted the event, saying, "It's about learning from the scholars and the teachers who are coming from all over the world to be with you in these few days."

Mustapha was a paid fundraiser for the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, which in 2008 was convicted of funneling more than $12 million to the terrorist group Hamas. He also performed at HLF and other events in a singing troupe known as the al-Sakhra band. In one video among many similar ones entered into evidence at the trial, Mustapha joins in singing:

O mother, Hamas called for Jihad.Over mosques' loudspeakers, with freedom.Every day it resists with stones and the dagger.Tomorrow, with God's help, it will be with amachine gun and a rifle.

Other exhibits – internal records seized by FBI agents – showed that officials from both CAIR and the Holy Land Foundation were part of an umbrella group known as the "Palestine Committee." That group, records show, was created by the Muslim Brotherhood in America to help the Hamas terrorist group politically and financially.MAS, one of the convention sponsors, also has direct ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, as documented by the Chicago Tribune in 2004, and as described in sworn testimony last spring by Abdurrahman Alamoudi, once the nation's most influential Islamist activists, who is currently serving a 23-year prison sentence in a terrorism financing case.

In addition, convention speaker Jamal Badawi is a MAS founder and is listed on the first page of a 1992 telephone directory of Brotherhood members admitted into evidence in the Holy Land Foundation trial.

Badawi praised the jihad of Gaza-based terrorists during a February 2009 speech on "Understanding Jihad and Martyrdom," at the Chebucto Mosque in Halifax, Nova Scotia. He also criticized Muslims who considered attacks on Israelis to be terrorism.

"They [moderate Muslims] made this accusation, but they did not even stop at accusations, they did cooperate with the enemies of humanity, to kill their own brothers and sisters," he said.

He led an Islamonline.net dialogue session three years earlier called "Martyrdom in Islam: Let's Discuss it." In it, he compared suicide bombers to "freedom fighters" fighting the Nazis or the Japanese kamikazes fighting the Americans.

He also has openly questioned whether Islam and democracy are compatible. "The Qur'an and Prophetic tradition are the ultimate constitution," he wrote in 2004.

Yet another MAS-ICNA convention speaker urged Muslims to help finance jihad. Ragheb Elsergany's past convention speeches were so extreme, organizers promised not to invite him back. But this year's appearance is at least the second since that pledge was made.

During the 2009 conference, Elsergany spoke of jihad as one of the greatest acts to please Allah, "and one of the greatest of them is supporting the fighters, and the mujahideen [Islamic warriors] and the besieged, and those in need there in Palestine," he said in an Arabic session entitled "The Gaza Struggle."

Elsergany then pushed people to donate money to the cause. "Allah has entrusted us with the money for our brothers and sisters, to confer upon the people of Palestine the surplus of our money. This is their right," he said. "They are the ones who face the Zionists with their chests, their nerves, their lives, their children, their holy places and their sacred places. They are the ones standing [in] front of us and we are standing behind them. You Muslims are abandoning this role."

In the 2011 conference, Elsergany predicted a day when "all of Palestine" would be liberated. The rise of Islamist governments in the Middle East and North Africa was clearing the way for "the Zionist entity" to "vanish absolutely," he said.

The United States government may have kept al-Qarni out of the country, but the MAS-ICNA convention still featured speakers who have called for the destruction of an existing nation, who have praised jihad as the use of violence to praise Allah, and who have documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood.

Awad's pledge to take al-Qarni's case to decision-makers in Washington so far has been made only in Arabic media with no accompanying release for U.S. audiences. It's no wonder.

A 31-year-old woman was being held by the police on Saturday in connection with the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of a Queens subway station and crushed by an oncoming train.The woman, Erica Menendez of the Bronx, is being charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, according to the Queens district attorney’s office. Ms. Menendez was taken into custody by the police early Saturday morning and made comments implicating herself in the crime when questioned by detectives, according to Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department.A law enforcement official said that Ms. Menendez had “told the cops it was an act against Muslims,” and cited the Sept. 11 attack.

A 31-year-old woman was being held by the police on Saturday in connection with the death of a man who was pushed onto the tracks of a Queens subway station and crushed by an oncoming train.The woman, Erica Menendez of the Bronx, is being charged with second-degree murder as a hate crime, according to the Queens district attorney’s office. Ms. Menendez was taken into custody by the police early Saturday morning and made comments implicating herself in the crime when questioned by detectives, according to Paul J. Browne, the chief spokesman for the Police Department.A law enforcement official said that Ms. Menendez had “told the cops it was an act against Muslims,” and cited the Sept. 11 attack.

Let's call it Al Goreera. That seems a fitting title for the new network that former Vice President Al Gore is launching with the jihadists' favorite television outlet: Al Jazeera. The effect will be to create vast new opportunities for our enemies to propagandize the American people, a key ingredient of their "civilization jihad" against our country.

It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this treachery. Imagine the furor that would have erupted if, during the Cold War, one of the United States' most prominent former leaders had enriched himself to the tune of $100 million by giving the Soviet Union's intelligence service, the KGB, a vehicle for engaging in information and political warfare in some 40 million homes across this land. If anything, the danger posed by Al-Goreera today is even greater since most of us -- and especially our elites -- are unaware that such warfare is even afoot.

Yet it is. In the Holy Land Foundation trial -- the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history -- the government introduced into evidence the Muslim Brotherhood's strategic plan for its operations in America. This 1991 document, entitled "The Explanatory Memorandum on the Strategic Goal of the Group," established that the Brothers' mission here is "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within...by their hands [meaning ours] and the hands of the Believers so that God's religion is made victorious over all other religions."

Toward this end, Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood employ various subversive techniques. Among the most important are those aimed at achieving what the military calls "information dominance." Al Jazeera is used by jihadists the world over -- including its Wahhabi owner, the Emir of Qatar -- to promote their narratives of hatred of the infidel West in general, and Israel and the United States in particular.

The Washington Free Beacon recently identified (http://freebeacon.com/7-things-you-need-to-know-about-al-jazeera/) seven illustrative examples of the network's regular dissemination of praise for terrorists and their sponsors. These include the likes of the late Yemini-American al Qaeda leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Sudan's genocidal dictator, Omar al-Bashir. The virulently shariah-promoting, Qatari-based cleric Yousef al-Qaradawi even has a regular show on Al Jazeera's programming for Muslim consumption. He uses it to sanction murderous holy war against American soldiers and Israelis, including women and children.

Of course, those promoting the network's penetration of the United States -- among them Mr. Gore, who will get a board seat on the new network to be formally known as Al Jazeera America -- tend to pooh-pooh concerns about the Arabic-language mother ship's service to the jihadi cause. In any event, these apologists insist that the programming in English is objective and fair, claiming that Colin Powell says it is the only network he watches. Who knows, given their appalling predilections, it may also be the favorite of President Obama's newest nominees, Defense Secretary-designate Chuck Hagel and CIA Director-designate John Brennan.

The truth, however, is that over time if not immediately, the dictates of the owner and the editorial board in Doha will ensure that the content of Al Goreera helps obscure, rather than illuminate, the ominous nature of civilization jihad and promotes the shariah doctrine it seeks to insinuate into this country.

Regrettably, the Federal Communications Commission has washed its hands of this transaction claiming, in the words of a spokesman, it "doesn't have regulatory oversight of transactions relating to ownership of cable networks." It's a safe bet that the deeply Islamist-penetrated Department of Justice (see Part 9 of www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com) won't intervene, either. In light of the stakes, Congress must inject itself into the matter.

At the very least, Al Jazeera America should be obliged to register as a foreign agent. That term is defined by the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) as individuals or entities that are wholly owned by a foreign government, that take instruction from the owners or their agents and that attempt to influence public opinion and policy in America. Al Goreera would certainly fit that description, and Congress should ensure that its broadcasts are identified accordingly.

The larger point was illuminated recently in an important essay by Jonathan Tobin at Commentary Magazine's blog (www.commentarymagazine.com/2013/01/04/the-al-jazeera-liberals-al-gore/): "The real issue here is not a false argument about diversity [in the U.S. media]. It is instead one about what it means to be a liberal in today's media environment....Gore refused to sell his channel to conservative Glenn Beck saying that he didn't wish to see his vanity project fall into the hands of those who disagreed with his politics. Fair enough. But the fact that Gore sees Al Jazeera as a good match for his brand of American liberalism speaks volumes about the nature of that set of beliefs."

With his spawning of Al Goreera, the former Vice President has offered proof positive of the Left's readiness tomake common cause with our enemies. Al Gore and his ilk must be held accountable -- not just for the affinity they feel for jihadists, but for enabling the latters' undermining of America. For a man who was once a heartbeat and then some 500 votes away from the presidency to enrich himself by selling out his country in this fashion is not just contemptible. It is a threat to the national security.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Editors’ note: While Representative Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has been vindicated for suggesting that Muslim Brotherhood elements have infiltrated the U.S. government, the left-wing activist group, People For the American Way (PFAW), has launched a petition drive against Rep. Bachmann in an effort to remove her from the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. Frontpage editors felt this was an opportune time to put a spotlight on other attackers of the Congresswoman and their troubling associations, and so we deemed it important to rerun Robert Spencer’s article, “Why Michele Bachmann Is Right About Keith Ellison,” from our July 23, 2012 issue, below:

Congresswoman Michele Bachmann (R-MN) has accused Congressman Keith Ellison (D-MN) of having a “long record of being associated” with the Hamas-linked Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Evoking the days of McCarthyism, a common charge being leveled at Bachmann these days, Ellison responded: “I am not now, nor have I ever been, associated with the Muslim Brotherhood.” He accused Bachmann of religious bigotry:

“I think she has a very narrowly prescribed definition of who belongs and who doesn’t. And there’s a whole bloc of people she don’t like. I think she thinks that we’re evil because we don’t understand God the way she does….It’s also about marginalizing and alienating a certain group of Americans who she does not view are American enough.”

Not content with that, he accused her of petty attention-seeking:

“But you have to ask yourself, you know, why did she make this so public? Why did she seem to be seeking public attention for these allegations she was making? If she really had actionable intelligence, why wouldn’t she go to the agencies that investigate these things? I think the answer is clear that she wanted attention. That was her goal all along.”

The only problem with Ellison’s wounded-martyr stance toward Bachmann’s accusations is that what she said is true: Ellison really does have a “long record of being associated” with Hamas-linked CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood.

As long ago as 2006, Ellison’s closeness to Nihad Awad, co-founder of Hamas-linked CAIR, was a matter of public record. Awad, who notoriously said in 1994 that he was “in support of the Hamas movement,” spoke at fundraisers for Ellison, raising considerable sums for his first Congressional race. According to investigative journalist Patrick Poole, Ellison has appeared frequently at CAIR events since then, despite the fact that CAIR is an unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas terror funding case — so named by the Justice Department. CAIR operatives have repeatedly refused to denounce Hamas and Hizballah as terrorist groups. Several former CAIR officials have been convicted of various crimes related to jihad terror. CAIR’s cofounder and longtime Board chairman (Omar Ahmad), as well as its chief spokesman (Ibrahim Hooper), have made Islamic supremacist statements. Its California chapter distributed posters telling Muslims not to talk to the FBI.

Poole explains that “according to Justice Department, Awad is a longtime Hamas operative. Multiple statements made by federal prosecutors identify Awad as one of the attendees at a 1993 meeting of US Muslim Brotherhood Palestine Committee leaders in Philadelphia that was wiretapped by the FBI under a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant. The topic of discussion during that 1993 meeting was how to help Hamas by working in the U.S. to help sabotage the Oslo Peace Accords.” But none of that fazed Ellison.

CAIR is also linked to the Muslim Brotherhood. Awad and CAIR’s cofounder, Omar Ahmad, were officials of the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) before founding CAIR. A captured internal Muslim Brotherhood document lists the IAP as one of the Brotherhood’s allied groups in the U.S.

And as for the Muslim Brotherhood itself, in 2008 Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. What is the Muslim American Society? The Muslim Brotherhood. “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” So reported the Chicago Tribune in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English-language website, Ikhwanweb. The Muslim American Society, according to Steven Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “is the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. The agenda of the MAS is to … impose Islamic law in the U.S., to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy.”

Weirdly, Mahdi Bray, Executive Director of the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation, denied that MAS had funded Ellison’s hajj: “Keith Ellison is a member of Congress who knows that congressmen don’t take trips sponsored by nonprofits. That would be a breach of congressional ethics.” Bray apparently failed to check with Ellison’s office before issuing this statement, as his office issued its own statement saying: “The trip, funded by the Muslim American Society of Minnesota, was fully reviewed and approved in advance by the House Ethics Committee.”

Imagine if a conservative Congressman had taken a trip that had been paid for by a Christian group that was, according to one of its own internal documents, dedicated to “eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and ‘sabotaging’ its miserable house” so that Christian law would replace the U.S. Constitution. I expect we would hear more of an outcry than we ever heard about Ellison’s Brotherhood-funded hajj.

Ellison has also retailed the Muslim Brotherhood-invented concept of “Islamophobia,” which was cooked up in a Brotherhood think tank, the International Institute of Islamic Thought, as a weapon to intimidate Americans into being afraid to resist jihad terror and Islamic supremacism. And in March 2011 he famously began weeping during Congressman Peter King’s (R-NY) first hearings on Islamic jihad terrorism, as he read what turned about to be a false report about a Muslim who went missing on 9/11 and was suspected of terror ties until he turned out to have been killed in the jihad attacks of that day. Ellison’s crocodile tears stole the show on that day, and successfully diverted media attention from what should have been the focus of the hearing: Islamic jihad activity in the United States.

Michele Bachmann is right: Keith Ellison’s Brotherhood ties should be investigated. That he and so many others on the Left have had such a furious reaction to her mere call for an investigation is only an indication that they have something to hide. John Boehner and the rest of the Republican Congressional leadership should be defending her and joining her call for investigations into Muslim Brotherhood influence in the Government. Instead, to their shame, they have joined Ellison in throwing her to the wolves, demonstrating that mainstream Republicans are no better than mainstream Democrats in confronting the threat of Islamic supremacism. And meanwhile, the Islamic supremacists continue to advance.

« Last Edit: January 17, 2013, 12:36:19 AM by Crafty_Dog »

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

This is really rather sickening to watch - CNN and others promoting puff pieces about the "This is my jihad" campaign (Propaganda campaign led by CAIR - essentially the Muslim Brotherhood.) This is a naked attempt to conceal and mislead the American public about what Islam teaches. Pamela has her own series of counter-ads pointing out the fact that jihad is traditionally understood as making war on "infidels" (non-Muslims.) Her ads - to which she links in this piece - contain actual quotations from the Koran. I encourage you to support her campaign with a donation if you are able:

The face of 2010's controversy over a proposed mega-mosque and community center near Ground Zero in Manhattan has been accused of defrauding donors in a lawsuit filed in New York state court this week.

Feisal Abdul Rauf and his wife Daisy Khan bought "a luxury sports car, personal real estate" and traveled on money that was donated for specific projects at Rauf's Cordoba Initiative and the American Society for Muslim Advancement (ASMA), the lawsuit says. It was filed by Robert Leslie Deak, whose family foundation donated $167,000 to Rauf's "Shariah Index" project from 2006-08. The money was supposed to be used for Islamic scholars to work to reduce anti-Muslim sentiment.

In addition, the lawsuit claims, Rauf failed to report $3 million in donations from the Malaysian government on his non-profits' tax forms and that Rauf also used the money on personal spending. The lawsuit seeks $5 million in punitive damages.

Rauf's attorney denied the allegations. This is not the first litigation between the two sides. Rauf and Khan sued Deak and his wife in 2010, alleging the Deaks sold them a Washington, D.C. apartment at a grossly inflated price. The apartment was to house Cordoba's national office. But, as columnist Juan Gonzalez notes, the sale price was $1.5 million, and Cordoba's tax returns indicate the initiative spent $792,000 that year.

"How do you manage to pay $1.5 million for a D.C. office the same year your organization claims it only spent half as much money in all?" Gonzalez wonders.

During the Ground Zero mosque controversy in 2010, the Investigative Project on Terrorism reported that other donations to ASMA and Cordoba were not listed in tax returns. A review of IRS forms also found that ASMA secured its non-profit status in 1998 by promising to serve as a house of worship to up to 500 people per day. But the group gave an address of New York apartment that had no communal space and Rauf's only prayer services took place at other mosques in New York.

ASMA also told the IRS in 1998 that it had a school "for the religious instruction of the young," but the group's website made no reference to its operating a school.

In addition, Cordoba's application for non-profit status claimed the group was not an outgrowth of, or connected to, other organizations. That was contradicted by a 2009 ASMA financial statement that said "ASMA is acting as a fiscal agent and is developing Cordoba's ability to function independently."

Rauf's group never had the financing to realize its grand ambition of a $100 million mosque and community center. The disputed location remains largely unchanged, although prayer services do take place inside. Rauf left the mosque group in 2011.

Regarding the story Crafty posted below - Note well how many fawning pieces/interviews with Rauf the media broadcast. Including 60 Minutes. It is truly sickening. No hard questions, no investigation of his shady background or incendiary statements in Arabic in his book (which of course were stricken from the U.S. version) The only person that gave him even a bit of a hard interview was Sean Hannity on Fox News - and Rauf lied his way through that from start to finish. In my opinion Hannity was much too easy on him, giving him the benefit of the doubt, when it was clear that he was lying, if Hannity or his staff had done their homework. The same goes for Bill O'Reilly - even worse. O'Reilly didn't even challenge Rauf at all.

We are truly witnessing a successful stealth jihad campaign which the Muslim Brotherhood is waging, in its own words, according to documents seized during the "Holy Land" foundation investigation - "To infiltrate and destroy Western civilization from within." Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller - labeled "extremists" by all mainstream media except Fox News - have repeatedly pointed this out - but no matter - the jihad goes on. AND the pro-jihad propaganda campaign with signs on buses in New York (and soon in other cities) suggesting that jihad means working out in a gym in the morning, or doing something charitable for your neighbor goes on without any questions from the media. What crap. No one other than a handful of courageous heroes like Spencer, Geller, David Horowitz and Frank Gaffney are drawing attention to any of this. As a result, millions of gullible Americans who get their news from the mainstream media, and don't bother to do any research on their own are fooled by this propaganda campaign.

« Last Edit: February 07, 2013, 04:48:25 PM by objectivist1 »

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

In 2008 Ellison accepted $13,350 from the Muslim American Society (MAS) to go on a pilgrimage to Mecca. The Muslim American Society is a Muslim Brotherhood organization: “In recent years, the U.S. Brotherhood operated under the name Muslim American Society, according to documents and interviews. One of the nation’s major Islamic groups, it was incorporated in Illinois in 1993 after a contentious debate among Brotherhood members.” That's from the Chicago Tribune in 2004, in an article that is now carried on the Muslim Brotherhood’s English-language website, Ikhwanweb. The Muslim American Society, according to Steven Emerson, director of the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “is the de facto arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. The agenda of the MAS is to … impose Islamic law in the U.S., to undermine U.S. counterterrorism policy.”

And now he is in Somalia, apparently to help facilitate transfers of money from Somali Muslims in Minnesota to their friends and relatives back in Somalia -- transfers that have often been used to finance jihad.

"Minnesota congressman arrives in Mogadishu," by Abdi Guled for the Associated Press, February 19 (thanks to Maxwell):

MOGADISHU, Somalia (AP) — A U.S. congressman visited Somalia's capital on Tuesday, the first visit in years by a member of Congress to what until recently was considered one of the world's most dangerous cities.Keith Ellison, a Democrat from Minnesota, said his visit to Mogadishu fulfills a request from his constituents with ties to Somalia. Minnesota has one of the largest populations of Somali-Americans in the U.S.

Ellison, the first Muslim elected to Congress, noted that the U.S. government recently recognized the Somali government for the first time since the country fell into anarchy in 1991. President Barack Obama's administration formally recognized the Somali government on Jan. 17.

"I told my constituency I would come here and work for the United States and Somalia relationship, and I am doing that in today's visit," Ellison told a news conference in Mogadishu.

Ellison was greeted by Somali President Hassan Sheikh Mohamud. The president said that Ellison's visit was a big day for Somalia.

Mogadishu has experienced about 18 months of relative peace, after the August 2011 ouster of the Islamic extremists of al-Shabab from the capital by African Union forces.

Ellison said his meetings with Somali officials would focus on financial remittances most often sent by Somalis in the U.S. back to family members in Somalia. Such remittances have become harder to make over fears that people sending money could be accused of aiding a terrorist organization such as al-Shabab.

So will Ellison be trying to make them easier? Will he do so with any regard for the financing of jihad terror?

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

"financial remittances most often sent by Somalis in the U.S. back to family members in Somalia. Such remittances have become harder to make over fears that people sending money could be accused of aiding a terrorist organization such as al-Shabab."-----------------

To the 'professional journalist' who wrote this for the AP: The scrutiny is not over "fears". It followed dozens of arrests and multiple convictions of Somali Americans in the Minneapolis metro on terrorism related charges including financial support to known, listed terrorist organizations.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/us/24terror.html?_r=0The [FBI's] first public account of a recruitment operation that it says has largely focused on Somali-American men from the Minneapolis area. Those young men included Shirwa Ahmed, 26, who carried out a suicide attack in northern Somalia in October 2008, becoming the first known American suicide bomber. Since then, at least five other recruits have been killed in Somalia, relatives and friends say, and four defendants have entered guilty pleas.

http://www.npr.org/series/102787287/the-somali-minneapolis-terrorist-axis8 Charged In Terrorism Probe Of Missing Somalis Prosecutors allege that the suspects provided financial support to young men from the Somali community in Minneapolis to go to Somalia and fight on behalf of al-Shabab, a group on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. Five of the Minnesotans have been killed.

Does the FBI have "fears that people sending money could be accused of aiding a terrorist organization"?

Besides a Somali magnet, Minneapolis is also a leading gay rights district. Maybe Rep. Ellison can give a public lectures in Somalia about gay rights - and women's rights - while he is there. Can't we all just get along? I hope the Jihadists don't find out about his Catholic upbringing or his inconsistent Mosque attendance record.

An ominous pattern has been developing, particularly of late: The Obama administration seems determined to subordinate public safety to political expediency. If a course-correction is not effected promptly, the result is predictable. Americans will be needlessly harmed, and perhaps killed.

The most recent and obvious example was the release last week of hundreds of reportedly dangerous illegal aliens from federal detention. The rationale given was that the sequestration-dictated budget cuts made their incarceration unaffordable. The White House has disavowed any involvement in this reckless decision. But it was certainly in keeping with the President’s erstwhile mantra that extremely dire repercussions – including the disruption of critical public services – would flow from a fiscal train-wreck that he has refused either to acknowledge devising or to stave off.

Even more worrying is the erosion of public safety inherent in the administration’s “fundamental transformation” of our national security. Mr. Obama’s own civilian and military leaders have warned that the effect of the $500 billion cut over ten years impelled by sequestration, coming on top of the nearly $800 billion in reductions in Pentagon spending that have been previously ordered, will be to “hollow out” the military. History teaches that when we disarm in this fashion, others respond aggressively – at the expense of our vital interests and at huge costs, both in fiscal terms and in a much more precious currency: lives.

Then, there are the reductions Mr. Obama seems determined to make, unilaterally if necessary, in our nuclear deterrent forces. The President fancies that he is “leading from in front” in this instance, but not one other nuclear power is following him towards a “world without nuclear weapons.” In fact, in the absence of a safe, reliable and credible American “nuclear umbrella,” it is inevitable that global proliferation and instability will increase. That will scarcely enhance our public safety.

The poster child for putting political considerations ahead of prudent security practice is John Brennan, the President’s homeland security and counter-terrorism advisor whom he hopes the Senate will shortly approve as the next Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Nothing could be more ill-advised.

The case against Brennan’s nomination has numerous elements. Members of the Senate’s Intelligence Committee have been rightly concerned about his apparent involvement in myriad leaks of highly classified information. These include the compromise of a most sensitive joint UK-Saudi intelligence operation that prevented a sophisticated terrorist attack and the sharing with Hollywood filmmakers of sensitive details concerning the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Brennan also seems to have been party to lying to legislators, for whom he has ill-concealed contempt. Notably, it seems he was involved with an interagency “Deputies Committee” that, in the immediate aftermath of the murderous September 11th terrorist attack in Benghazi, reworked after-action briefers’ “talking points” – resulting in the unfounded claim that it was precipitated by an offensive video, not the attackers’ lust for jihad.

Speaking of jihad, John Brennan’s failure to comprehend this term is emblematic of the most important reason for the Senate to regard the prospect of him leading the CIA as a prescription for still further endangering of public safety. In a May 2010 address, Brennan declared that: “Jihad is a holy struggle, a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.”

In fact, Muslims who adhere to the orthodox and totalitarian Islamic doctrine they call shariah know jihad to be a legitimate tenet of their belief system, alright, but that it means holy war against the unbelievers. They understand “purification” to be about ensuring the triumph of shariah, both locally and globally.

Further egregious strategic errors flow from this fundamental, and potentially fatal, misjudgment by John Brennan and the administration he serves: The avowedly jihadist and shariah-imposing Muslim Brotherhood has been legitimated, empowered, funded, armed and emboldened. On Brennan’s watch, training materials and trainers that make clear such Islamists are unalterably our enemies have been purged government-wide. And Muslim Brothers have effectively been made the arbiters of who and what shall be used in future training to “counter violent extremism” underwritten by federal funds. The peril to public safety posed by such decisions is obvious.

John Brennan is, at best, willfully blind about the most immediate national security threat of our time. At worst, he has spent the past four years enabling its ascendancy abroad and its growth andinfluence operations here at home.

The Brennan nomination has engendered bipartisan opposition on other counts. The Left opposes his past involvement in so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques” and his current role in the lethal use of drones. With respect to the former, the Intelligence Committee should carefully consider the CIA’s impending response to a controversial $40 million study commissioned by that panel’s majority before bringing Brennan’s confirmation to a vote. And with respect to the latter, Republicansupport for such drone strikes should not obscure – or be allowed to minimize – the unacceptability of the nominee’s myriad other defects.

President Obama’s record of putting his partisan political interests ahead of the best interests and even the safety of the American people is unconscionable. The Senate must not condone this practice, let alone contribute to it, by confirming one of its prime-movers, John Brennan, as the next CIA Director.

TAGGED WITH → John Brennan • Muslim Brotherhood • nuclear weapons • Sequestration AUTHORFrank Gaffney, Jr.Frank Gaffney is the Founder and President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C. Under Mr. Gaffney's leadership, the Center has been nationally and internationally recognized as a resource for timely, informed and penetrating analyses of foreign and defense policy matters. Mr. Gaffney formerly acted as the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Policy during the Reagan Administration, following four years of service as the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Forces and Arms Control Policy. Previously, he was a professional staff member on the Senate Armed Services Committee under the chairmanship of the late Senator John Tower, and a national security legislative aide to the late Senator Henry M. Jackson.

« Last Edit: March 04, 2013, 04:12:49 PM by objectivist1 »

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Homeland Insecurity: The attorney general says the threat from local jihadists is now worse than terrorist plots hatched overseas. He warned Americans not to grow "complacent." Tell it to the media.

The major news gatekeepers have ignored the jihadist element in no fewer than four recent cases of sensational killings of non-Muslims by mostly young Muslim men inside the U.S., including:

• Yusuf Ibrahim, a 27-year-old Egyptian immigrant who on Feb. 5 allegedly beheaded two Coptic Christians living in New Jersey.• Ali Syed, a 20-year-old Muslim who allegedly randomly killed three people in Southern California on Feb. 18 before killing himself.• Ammar Asim Faruq Harris, a 26-year-old reported black Muslim convert who on Feb. 21 is said to have killed three people in Las Vegas.• Ali Salim, a 44-year-old Pakistan-born doctor who is accused of raping and killing a pregnant woman and her 9-month-old fetus last year in his Ohio office.

This rash of homicides by Muslims has triggered a giant media yawn, despite telltale signs of jihadist motive. Jihad? What jihad? Reporters seemed to be collectively shrugging in another fit of extreme PC.

Here's another key piece of information denied the average American watching the evening news: the majority of convicted terrorists in the U.S. are American citizens. A study found the terrorist threat is increasingly in our backyard.

Equally stunning, more than half of the 171 terror convicts analyzed by the London-based Henry Jackson Society are college-educated. Many are black converts. Nearly half were born and raised here, according to the report prefaced by former CIA director Mike Hayden.

Yet they want to kill fellow Americans simply because they believe that's what their creed tells them to do. But instead of confronting this homegrown threat, our society is fig-leafing it, even glorifying it.

Even in red-state Texas, educators are indoctrinating kids into the Islamic faith. At Lumberton High School, a geography class was recently told to dress up in Islamic garb — including burqas — and refer to the 9/11 hijackers not as terrorists but as "freedom fighters."

This isn't an isolated event. There's a coordinated effort by leftist do-gooders and multiculturalists to de-link Islam from violence and terror and rewrite history.When educators, journalists and politicians hear no Islamic violence, see no Islamic violence and report no Islamic violence, beware, it's Sept. 10, 2001, again.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

It has now been revealed that the Boston Marathon bombers were two Muslims from southern Russia near Chechnya: Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in a firefight with Massachusetts police early this morning, and his brother Dzhokhar, who as of this writing is still at large.

As more and more material comes to light about the pair, their motivations become clear. On a Russian-language social media page, Dzhokhar features a drawing of a bomb under the heading “send a gift,” and just above links to sites about Islam. Tamerlan’s YouTube page features two videos by Sheikh Feiz Mohammed. According to a report published in The Australian in January 2007, in a video that came to the attention of authorities at the time, Mohammed “urges Muslims to kill the enemies of Islam and praises martyrs with a violent interpretation of jihad.”

Tamerlan also says, “I’m very religious.” He notes that he does not drink alcohol because Allah forbids it: “God said no alcohol,” and that his Italian girlfriend has converted to Islam. Even his name indicates the world from which he comes: Tamerlan Tsarnaev is apparently named for the Muslim warrior Tamerlane. Andrew Bostom wrote in 2005 that “Osama bin Laden was far from the first jihadist to kill infidels as an expression of religious piety….Osama lacks both Tamerlane’s sophisticated (for his time) military forces and his brilliance as a strategist. But both are or were pious Muslims who paid homage to religious leaders, and both had the goal of making jihad a global force.”

Combine all that with the fact that the bombs were similar to IED’s that jihadis use in Afghanistan and Iraq, and that Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a jihad car bomb in Times Square jihad car bomber, used a similar bomb, and that instructions for making such a bomb have been published in al-Qaeda’s Inspire magazine, and the motivations of the Tsarnaev brothers are abundantly clear. It is increasingly likely also that they were tied in somehow to the international jihad network, as is indicated by how they fought off Boston police early on Friday with military-grade explosives – where did they get those? And where did they get the military training that they reportedly have, and displayed in several ways during the fight Friday morning?

Yet despite all this, the mainstream media continues to obfuscate the truth. NBC doesn’t see fit to mention any of the brothers’ connections to Islam in their profile of them. CNN warns that “it should not be assumed that either brother was radicalized because of their Chechen origins.” And this, of course, follows days of speculation about how the bombings appeared to be the work of “right-wing extremists,” “Tea Partiers,” and the like. According to Victor Medina in the Examiner, “Esquire Magazine’s Charles P. Pierce attempted to link the bombings to right wing extremists similar to Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber. In another, CNN national security analyst Peter Bergen speculated that the type of bomb device could link it to right wing extremist groups.” Salon hoped that the bomber would turn out to be a “white American.”

Will Pierce, Bergen, and all the others who offered similar analyses apologize now? They almost certainly will not – and even worse, they will not be held accountable. No matter how often mainstream analysts are wrong, they never get questioned or jettisoned.

But in one sense, they were right: the bombers were indeed white, if not American. That demonstrates once and for all the vacuity of the mainstream media and Islamic supremacist claim that opposing jihad and Islamic supremacism is “racism.” Islam is not a race, and the massacre of innocent civilians is not a race. Opposing jihad is not racism, but the defense of freedom. The Tsarnaev brothers have confirmed that. However, nothing is more certain than that next week, Islamic supremacist and Leftist spokesmen will be featured on NBC and CNN decrying “racism” and an imagined “backlash” against innocent Muslims, which is always a feature of mainstream media coverage after a jihad attack, even though the “backlash” itself never actually materializes.

And there will be no accountability for that nonsense, either. Nowadays, it’s much more of a path to success to be politically correct than to be correct.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

From my article on the topic: "A number of analysts and commentators have opined about the Tsarnaevs’ “self-radicalizing.” However, self-radicalization” is a fatuous concept. First, what does “radical” mean in this context? I would submit that it means to accept, internalize and, ultimately, act upon the belief that violence in the name of Islam is not only justified but mandated. This is not a “radical” concept in Islam, because the Qur’an itself clearly spells this out (Sura al-Tawbah [IX]:5; Sura Muhammad [XLVII]:3; Sura al-Baqarah [II]:191ff; etc.), Muhammad lived it, many hadiths reinforce it, and Islamic history is rife with jihad and conquest....More than any other world religion Islam lionizes violence, even in the modern world -- a major reason why 31 of 51 transnational terrorist groups are Islamic. Indeed, it’s probably more accurate to call Muslims who eschew violence “radical,” since the ones who engage in it are, in a very real sense, simply fulfilling the Qur’anic rubrics literally. Thus, no Muslim terrorist “radicalizes” himself but, rather -- as we see with Tamerlan Tsarnaev -- is more prone to engaging in terrorism and violence as he (or, less frequently, she) becomes more observant of traditional (in particular, Sunni) Islam and then falls under the influence of Internet teachers like Feiz Muhammad or Anwar al-Awlaki or their ilk, who encourage such pious young men to wage jihad fi sabil Allah. But make no mistake: if the religion were as peaceful and opposed to violence as apologists and (most) analysts allege, then no amount of YouTube sermons or editions of AQ’s “Inspire” magazine would have any effect, and would instead fall on deaf ears. And note: the Arabic name of this magazine is actually al-Malahim, which means not “inspire” but, rather, “slaughters, massacres, epic struggles” -- something one never hears explained on CNN or even FNC, much less by government analysts."

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

Warner Todd Huston reported at Breitbart Monday that “in some of its reports on Saturday night’s White House Correspondents Dinner (WHCD), the Associated Press failed to include one of President Obama’s own gags.”

Obama said: “These days I look in the mirror and have to admit, I’m not the strapping young Muslim Socialist that I used to be.” But, noted Huston, “in one version of the night’s story (as seen at Huffington Post, Time Magazine, Breitbart Wires, the Ottawa Citizen, and The Columbian to name a few), the AP’s Bradley Klapper forgot one part of the President’s joke,” reporting his words as “I’m not the strapping young Socialist that I used to be,”

Why? Did they think it had too much of a ring of truth?

Why did some editors at AP or at the publications that picked up the AP story think it necessary to run interference for Obama on this point?

By mocking the idea that he is a Muslim (and a Socialist), Obama is trying to render these things too ridiculous for serious public discussion. Fine. His personal beliefs are of no moment, except insofar as they influence his public stances. And the direction of his public policies is obvious. He has maintained a consistent foreign policy line that has enabled the establishment of several Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia states in North Africa and the Middle East, and a domestic policy that has enabled the advance of the Islamic supremacist agenda to assert the primacy of Islamic law over American law and practice wherever they conflict. No amount of mockery will obscure that.

The record is clear. As demonstrations and revolts swept the Muslim world during Obama’s first term, he was enthusiastic. He had encouraging words for the “Arab Spring” demonstrators in Egypt and Tunisia, and even gave military assistance to their Libyan counterparts. During the third and last debate of the 2012 presidential campaign, Mitt Romney and Obama sparred over which could express support for the Syrian rebels (who are dominated by Islamic jihadists) more strongly, and as Obama’s second term began, his administration was inching ever closer to military aid for those rebels. Yet there were two large-scale demonstrations in Muslim countries that Obama did not support – and those two exceptions are extraordinarily revealing about his disposition, as well as his policy, toward Islam.

The two pro-democracy revolts that Obama refused to support were arguably the only two that were genuinely worthy of the pro-democracy label: the demonstrations against the Islamic regime in Iran in 2009, and the anti-Muslim Brotherhood demonstrations in Egypt in winter 2013. There is a common thread between these two that distinguishes them from all the others: in Egypt in late 2012 and early 2013, as well as in Iran in 2009, the demonstrators were protesting against Islamic states; all the other demonstrations led to the establishment of Islamic states. To be sure, the Iranian demonstrators in 2009 contained many pro-Sharia elements that simply objected to the way the Islamic Republic was enforcing Sharia, but they also included many who wanted to reestablish the relatively secular society that prevailed under the last Shah. Whether the Sharia or the democratic forces would have won out in the end is a question that will never be answered – in no small part thanks to Barack Obama.

In every case Barack Obama has been consistent: in response to the demonstrations and uprisings in the Islamic world, he has without exception acted in the service of Islamic supremacist, pro-Sharia regimes. For whatever complex of personal affinity and political calculation, he has steered the United States, in the words of the Egyptian newspaper Rose el-Youssef, “from a position hostile to Islamic groups and organizations in the world to the largest and most important supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The transformation of U.S. foreign and domestic policy is the most significant manifestation of Obama’s warmly positive stance toward Islam. Speaking at the Pentagon in 2010 on the ninth anniversary of 9/11, Barack Obama returned to a recurring theme of his presidency: that the attacks on Americans and the war that has been declared against the West have nothing do with Islam. “As Americans, we will not and never will be at war with Islam,” Obama declared, echoing almost verbatim words he used in his June 2009 Cairo address, and then adding: “It was not a religion that attacked us that September day. It was al-Qaeda, a sorry band of men, which perverts religion.”

George W. Bush had affirmed that the U.S. was not at war with Islam, but Obama drove home the point in numerous ways: purging military and intelligence training materials of any mention of Islam in connection with terrorism; employing the might of the Justice Department to win special accommodation for Muslims in workplaces and schools; and lending the prestige and power of his administration to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation’s efforts to compel Western states to criminalize criticism of Islam.

Not a bad record for a self-described “Muslim Socialist,” however facetiously he meant the appellation. No wonder AP was embarrassed for him.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.

To order the Freedom Center’s pamphlet, “The Muslim Brotherhood in the Obama Administration” by Frank Gaffney, click here.

Huma Abedin, former Secretary of State Hillary’s Clinton’s long time aide with extensive ties to Muslim Brotherhood groups, was granted an arrangement by the State Department to do outside consulting work, even as she remained a top advisor in the Department. Abedin did not disclose either the arrangement, or how much she earned from it, on her financial report, despite a requirement that public officials must disclose significant sources of income. Clinton advisor Philippe Reines contended she was under no obligation to do so.

Abedin, who has served Clinton for 15 years, became a “special government employee” when she returned from maternity leave in June 2012, according to an unidentified source familiar with the arrangement. According to several sources who spoke to Politico, Abedin did work for outside clients, and one of her friends confirmed they totaled four entities in all: the State Department, Hillary Clinton, the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation and Teneo, a firm co-founded by Doug Band, a former counselor for Bill Clinton.

Teneo, which promotes itself as a company that “brings together the disciplines of government and public affairs, investor and public relations and investment banking advisory in an integrated approach that allows us to provide clients with unparalleled strategic counsel and operational support,” has advised clients such as Coca Cola and MF Global, the brokerage firm that went bankrupt while it was being run by Jon Corzine, former Governor of New Jersey, and big-donor “bundler” for Barack Obama’s re-election campaign.

The disclosure was revealed as Abedin’s husband, disgraced former Democratic Congressman Anthony Weiner, has begun preparations for a New York City mayoral run next year in an attempt to resuscitate his career. The city’s Conflict of Interest Board requires mayoral candidates to disclose personal financial information, including spousal sources of income, but that part of a candidate’s filing is not made public. Furthermore, because Abedin relinquished her job as deputy chief of staff last June, that change abrogated her requirement to disclose private earnings for the rest of the year on her own disclosure forms. The change of Abedin’s employment status was done so quietly, she continued to be identified in news reports as employed in her former job. On March 1, Abedin was tapped to run Clinton’s post-State Department transition team, comprised of a six-person “transition office” located in Washington.

Good government groups have questioned the potential conflict of interest that representing the public, while maintaining private clients, suggests. “If she was being held out as a deputy chief of staff, it would be highly unusual for her to be a part-time employee or a consultant,” said Melanie Sloane, executive director of CREW, an ethics watchdog group. “Being a deputy chief of staff at the State Department is generally considered more than a full-time job.”

It is not clear what role, if any, Hillary Clinton played in approving Abedin’s transition to her new job. State Department officials, as well as people who work with the Clintons, refused to talk on the record about the arrangement. And while Weiner released a copy of the couple’s 2012 tax return revealing income of more than $490,000, he also declined to discuss what portion of that income was earned by Abedin apart from her job at State, which paid her around $135,000 for the year. The remaining amount of approximately $365,000 combines consulting fees for both husband and wife, sources said.

The change in Abedin’s status permitted her to work from home in New York, rather than at the State Department’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., allowing her to spend more time with her husband and child. While Abedin was pregnant, Weiner was forced to resign from his congressional seat when it was discovered that he had Tweeted sexually charged messages, as well as nude photos of himself, to several women. Weiner vehemently denied the allegations at first, saying his account had been hacked. But mounting political pressure forced him to admit the truth and abruptly resign.

Abedin’s arrangement is similar to those of other Clinton loyalists who received compensation for their work on Clinton’s government staff, and her political action committee, while she was a U.S. Senator from New York. Furthermore, while there is no exact number of State Department officials who have a similar arrangement, a Department source told Politico it was “not uncommon.”

Perhaps not. But Abedin is anything but a common government employee. While the mainstream media remains temporarily focused on Abedin’s role with regard to her husband’s political campaign, it remains calculatingly incurious about her work with the William Jefferson Clinton Foundation, and the tens of millions of dollars in donations it has received from such entities as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the governments of Kuwait and Qatar, Saudi businessman Nasser Al-Rashid, who has close ties to the Saudi royal family, Sheikh Mohammed H. Al-Amoudi, reputed to be one of the richest men in the world, and a group called Friends of Saudi Arabia and the Dubai Foundation.

Abedin’s earlier career also remains below the radar as well. She began working with Hillary Clinton in 1996, as the then-First Lady’s intern. She remained a loyal staffer as Clinton transitioned to the Senate, and the State Department.

During part of that time, Abedin had another job as well. From 1996-2008, she also worked as assistant editor of the Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (JMMA), a publication founded by Abdullah Omar Naseef.

Naseef was also secretary general of the Muslim World League in Saudi Arabia, a highly significant Muslim Brotherhood organization Osama Bin Laden once characterized as one of his terrorist group’s chief funding sources.

Using that connection, Naseef founded the Rabita Trust, a designated terrorist organization. In the late seventies, he hired Abedin’s parents to run his newly formed Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs (IMMA). Editing its journal has remained a family enterprise to this day, and Naseef’s tenure as a member of the journal’s advisory editorial board, seven years of which coincided with Huma’s Abedin’s tenure there, lasted until 2003–the same year he was named as a defendant in a civil case brought by victims of 9/11. Naseef was dropped from the suit in 2010, when a court decided it lacked jurisdiction over him.

Dr. Saleha Abedin, Huma’s mother, still edits the JMMA. She took over when Huma’s father, Syed Zainul Abedin, passed away. Both of Abedin’s parents, as well as her brother, Hassan Abedin, have deep, documented ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. Furthermore, her mother runs the International Islamic Committee for Woman and Child, which is part of yet another terror-designated organization known as the Union of Good.

It remains impossible to understand how Abedin received security clearance to work at the State Department, which allows her access to top-secret documents. Even if one makes the case that she should not be tainted by the dubious relationships maintained by her family members, it is impossible to disassociate her from her own relationship with Abdullah Omar Naseef and his organization.

Yet in a testament to the power of PC-inspired denial, when these and other sordid relationships were documented in a letter sent by Reps. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Trent Franks (R-AZ), Lynn Westmoreland (R-GA), and Tom Rooney (R-FL) to the State Department’s Deputy Inspector General, politicians in both parties, as well as the mainstream media, accused Bachmann of engaging in a McCarthy-esque smear campaign.

The letter to the Inspector General was sent in June, the same month Abedin relinquished her position as deputy chief of staff. Whether one assumes this to be a mere coincidence or not, there is no denying that Abedin’s change in status was kept secret for nearly a year. The Obama administration could quickly put an end to this controversy by revealing the contents of Abedin’s responses contained in Standard Form 86, a “Questionnaire for National Security Positions.” That questionnaire should have been completed prior to Abedin serving in her capacity at State beginning in 2009.

No doubt a State Department up to its neck in the Benghazi scandal is too busy to respond.

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"You have enemies? Good. That means that you have stood up for something, sometime in your life." - Winston Churchill.